Bleak House By Charles Dickens Book Summary Sir Leicester Dedlock, an idle, fashionable aristocrat, maintains his ancestral

home in rural Lincolnshire and also a place in London. Lady Dedlock, his wife, "has beauty still" at or near fifty but is proud and vain. She keeps a secret unknown even to Sir Leicester. When she was young, she bore an illegitimate child, a girl, to her lover, Captain Hawdon. What she does not know, however, is that the child is still alive. This daughter, now an adult, was given the name Esther Summerson by the aunt who raised her. When the aunt (Miss Barbary) dies, kindly, retired John Jarndyce was appointed Esther's guardian. At the time of the story, Esther is twenty and is traveling to Mr. Jarndyce's home, Bleak House (which is cheerful and happy not bleak). On the journey, she has the companionship of his other two wards, Ada Clare and Richard Carstone. Ada, Richard, and Mr. Jamdyce are parties to a complicated, long-standing, and by now obscure legal suit called Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Various aspects of this entangled suit are heard from time to time in the High Court of Chancery in London. The issues involve, among other things, the apportionment of an inheritance. At Bleak House, Esther notices that Richard Carstone has some weaknesses of character yet remains likeable; she forms a deep friendship with him as well as with the beautiful Ada. She also notices that the two young people rather soon find themselves in love. One "muddy, murky afternoon," while looking at some legal documents, Lady Dedlock becomes curious about the handwriting on them. She asks Mr. Tulkinghorn, the Dedlocks' attorney, if he knows the hand. Tulkinghorn, a corrupt and self-serving but clever lawyer, does not, but eventually he discovers that the hand is that of a certain "Nemo." A pauper without friends, "Nemo" has been living in a dilapidated "rag-and-bottle" shop owned by an old merchant, Krook. Tulkinghorn finds "Nemo" dead, seemingly from too much opium. One person who knew the dead man is little Jo, an urchin street sweeper. At an inquest, Jo tells Tulkinghorn, "He [Nemo] wos wery good to me, he wos!" Lady Dedlock knows that the handwriting is that of Captain Hawdon. So, disguised as her own maid (Mlle. Hortense), she finds Jo, who shows her where Hawdon is buried. Tulkinghorn, looking always to his own advantage, continues his keen interest in "Nemo" and is watchful of Lady Dedlock. The maid Hortense detests Lady Dedlock and helps Tulkinghorn ferret out the

lady's secret. Tulkinghorn reveals to Lady Dedlock that he knows about her child and Captain Hawdon. He promises to keep his knowledge to himself, but later he tells her that he no longer feels bound to do so. Mille. Hortense, feeling used by Tulkinghorn, turns against him. A short time later, Tulkinghorn is found shot to death. A detective, Mr. Bucket, is hired to investigate. The suspects include Lady Dedlock and George Rouncewell, son of the Dedlocks' housekeeper. Mr. Bucket tells Sir Leicester about Lady Dedlock's dealings with Tulkinghorn and says that she is a suspect. Sir Leicester has a stroke but is compassionate and fully forgiving of his wife. Bucket later discovers that the murderer is Mlle. Hortense. Richard Carstone, insolvent, uncertain of his future, and temperamentally indecisive and insecure, futilely expends much time and energy on the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit. He secretly marries Ada Clare as soon as she turns twenty-one. Meanwhile, Esther and young doctor Allan Woodcourt are attracted to each other but she accepts a marriage proposal from Mr. Jarndyce. The waif Jo contracts smallpox, and both Esther and her maid Charley catch it from him; Esther survives but with a scarred face. Shortly afterward, she learns that Lady Dedlock is her mother. Feeling disgrace and remorse, Lady Dedlock dresses like an ordinary working woman and wanders away. After an intensive search, Esther and Detective Bucket find her lying dead in the snow at the gates of the paupers cemetery, where Captain Hawdon is buried. The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce is concluded at last, but legal fees have consumed all the money that Richard Carstone would have inherited. He dies, and, soon afterward, Ada gives birth to a boy, whom she names Richard. John Jarndyce releases Esther from her engagement, and she marries Allan Woodcourt. Two daughters are born to them, and Allan tells his wife that she is "prettier than ever." Bleak House By Charles Dickens About Bleak House Bleak House is a long novel. This does not mean that Dickens style is wordy or that the book could be abridged without losing the effects that Dickens wanted to achieve. None of Dickens' contemporaries thought that the book was too long. In fact, short novels were unusual in the Victorian era (18371901). The tempo of life was slower then. Most men, whether in cities or on the farms, lived close to their work: There was no daily massive rush of commuters. Most women were in the home all day and, as a rule, had more

than enough time to do what needed to be done; this fact in itself kept the pace of domestic life slower than anything familiar to us today. People seldom traveled and, if they did, rarely did they go very far. By today's standards, life was quiet in Dickens' era. Railways existed, but cars, trucks, planes, radio, movies, and television didn't exist. Most shops and places of public entertainment closed early. No crackling neon signs put any "buzz" in the night. At night, one could read or play cards provided one could afford to burn the oil or candles; it was cheaper and easier to be inactive from sundown to sunup. On Sundays, everything was closed but the church doors and the park gates. Far fewer people were tyrannized by the deadlines that today's technology has made the rule of the workplace. As a result of this slower pace of life, Victorian people generally had what contemporary psychologists call a "low threshold" meaning that in order to feel pleasantly stimulated, they didn't require loud, gaudy, psychedelic, fast-moving, or ever-changing stimuli. Young people had, as always, their problems, but one of them was not a tendency to "burn out" early. In Victorian England, patience and easygoing ways were far more common than nerves and distractedness. What this meant for literature is that proportionately more people had more time for reading, and, at the same time, they were psychologically well prepared for the art of reading. Reading is a quiet, completely unsensational activity, and it demands a certain patience. Time and patience are what the past, including the Victorian days, is all about. Of course, there are other reasons why the Victorians read so assiduously. Dickens' era had a rapidly growing middle class, one that read and one that was large enough to ensure a constant demand for the printed word. The middle class was still trying to "prove itself" to show the world that it was at least as fit to govern as the aristocracy. To establish and maintain its good name, this class had to show itself moral, sober, knowledgeable, responsible, and even, if possible, literate and refined like the lords and ladies. Knowledge and refinement were to be gained mostly from books, magazines, and other printed matter. To read was to gain, to become, to advance: Such was the unconscious motto of a great part of the Victorian public. One should also note that most reading material was quite inexpensive in Dickens' London.

Victorians also read because they needed answers to new problems. The epoch was one of rapid and large-scale social change. Rampant industrialization and the enormous, largely unplanned growth of cities brought many difficulties. Urban crowding, child labor, the proliferation of slums, inadequate wages, unsafe and unsanitary working conditions, periodic widespread unemployment with little provision for the unemployed, vast increases in the incidence of alcoholism, venereal disease, and tuberculosis are only the most obvious ones. Controversy raged over what should be done about the situation. The era was also a period of the breakup of traditional beliefs, of intense debate and confusion over values and concepts moral, religious, scientific, and economic. New theories of biological and geological evolution were being proposed, and new approaches to the study of the Bible were vigorously challenging traditional interpretation. People wanted firm guidance on these and other issues. Those who could or might provide it were the writers. It was the public clamor for illumination that caused more and more poets, novelists and essayists to devote much of their time to thinking about and speaking out upon the issues of the day. Dickens himself began his writing career as an entertainer, a humorist the comic Sketches by Boz and Pickwick Papers were his first books but soon found himself caught up in the intense popular demand for clarification and advice. His third book, Oliver Twist (1838), began a series of social messages that ended only with his death. Most of Dickens' readers had strong religious and ethical convictions. The Victorian middle class, at all levels, was heavily Protestant. Most of the "dissenting" churches (for example, Methodism and Congregationalism, those outside the established Church of England) were evangelical, and even the established church had been notably influenced by evangelical religion. Evangelicals emphasized, among other things, strict moral behavior; they felt a need to make such behavior highly, sometimes even aggressively visible. Their approach to temptation and evil was like the approach to a contagious disease; the unfortunates who had "fallen" were to be avoided and denounced. Generally, evangelicals wanted to be (at the very least, to seem) not just "good" people but models of goodness, exemplars of righteousness and to live only amongst other such models. When it came to reading works of fiction, the evangelical in every Victorian wanted the author to offer characters whose purity made them paragons. For the sake of context and contrast, the author might provide distinctly wicked characters;

these needed to be converted to virtuous ways, or punished, or both. Strongly evangelical habits of mind did not predispose readers either to understand or to identify with morally in-between characters. On the other hand, Dickens himself was a nominal Anglican rather than an "evangelical." He was not pious and not even a regular church-goer. Thus, by no means, does he represent an example of a Victorian author conforming unquestioningly to the expectations of religion or religiosity. He reserves the right to create morally in-between characters (Richard Carstone is an obvious example), and when he wants to write pure entertainment a ghost story or an adventure tale without any "edifying" value he does so. Nevertheless, Dickens was determined, always, to remain popular and make money, and so his fiction does, on the whole, seek to ingratiate itself with the middle-class world. Most of his books and stories are well stocked with "pure," or at least admirable, characters. Villains are reformed or punished. Story endings are happy. Though Dickens is known to have had no objection to the bawdy elements in his much-loved Fielding and in other eighteenth-century writers, he defers to the sexual puritanism that was conspicuous in Victorian society. He also shares the tendency of many in his audience to idealize and sentimentalize Woman. He was realistic enough to recognize that not all women were pleasant, and, in fact, some of the most monstrous characters in his books are females; but very often the good women (and girls) are Pure Goodness and, partly as a result of such exaggeration, not quite real or interesting. But such characters satisfied his own desire to contemplate an idealized femininity, and, of course, in his day, these characters helped sell the books. Though Dickens deplored injustice and needless suffering and satirized, sometimes bitterly, anyone or anything that perpetrated them, he was by nature too much in love with life, too fun-loving and spontaneous, to be (or even to pose as) morally grave or cautionary or ethically obsessed. Like Shakespeare and Mozart, he personifies prolific creativity, and his first impulse is to celebrate. He probably could not have brought himself to stay with the theme of social reform if he hadn't been able to do so creatively through exciting incidents and vivid characters that were fun to create, and through mocking tones, wry or hilarious cracks. One way he got around his evangelicized readers' desire for fictional characters who were paragons of virtue (and who, being so, are likely to be artistically uninteresting) was to concentrate, much of the time, on child characters. Children might be but

aren't expected to be perfect, and being naive and inexperienced, they can more easily be indulged and forgiven than adults. Of course, Dickens had an imperative reason for creating so many child characters: His own childhood especially its vicissitudes haunted him. Dickens ranks with Shakespeare, Molire, and Aristophanes as one of the world's greatest masters of comedy. In his lifetime he enjoyed the greatest popularity any English author has ever known, and to this day, "Dickens" is an almost mythical name, conjuring up associations even for many people who have read little or none of his work. Obviously Dickens' comic art struck some perennially appealing note. However, it is not comic achievement alone that accounts for Dickens' unprecedented popularity. In his childhood and early adult years, he experienced hardship and intense suffering. His own misfortunes gave him a keen sense of the harsh realities of life and developed in him a ready sympathy for people especially children and young adults beset with difficulties and sorrows. Thus, well before his writing career actually got going, he was accustomed to perceiving human experience in terms of its deeper, more complicated side, as well as its lighter side. In the mature Dickens, optimism and a zest for life hence, a basically comic rather than tragic or pessimistic outlook tended to prevail but were balanced by a desire to deal with serious and even painful themes. It is partly this balance, this wholeness, that prevented Dickens from being merely another amusing but rather superficial author. In many of Dickens' novels, the comic element, or much of it, is actually in the service of a serious vision of life: The comedy does not exist simply for its own sake but is partly a means of presenting serious material in a way that makes for enjoyable reading. In Dickens' later novels, the comedy becomes subdued. As an example, note that Bleak House, which marks the end of Dickens' youthful ebullience, reflects his frustrations. He was by that time unhappy in marriage, and he thought that his work was having little or no effect on social conditions in England. Nevertheless, despite its dreary atmospheres, dingy locales, and troubled characters, Bleak House remains with the genre (class) of comedy, in the sense that, by and large, all ends happily rather than tragically or pathetically. The book's principal villain, Tulkinghorn, is eliminated. Hortense, the killer, is brought to justice. Lady Dedlock lives long enough to be reunited with her daughter. Suffering brings out the best in Sir Leicester and George Rouncewell. The ending itself is supremely happy, and all along

the way there are droll characters like Phil Squad and vibrantly laughing ones like Boythorn; and there is plenty of smiling amiability, as personified, for example, in Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet. Laughing rather than bitter satire is always cropping up. Nor should we overlook the comic contribution of Dickens' prose style. In it, irony abounds; the wry, amusing comment becomes standard fare. Bleak House is generally regarded as one of Dickens' most impressive novels and a masterpiece of world literature, though not one of the greatest novels of all time. This acclaim does not mean that the book is flawless; it means that despite imperfections, Bleak House is still widely read and enjoyed. Some readers agree with G. K. Chesterton, who says that there is a certain monotony about the book: "the artistic . . . unity . . . is satisfying, almost suffocating. There is the motif and again the motif." The book has also been faulted for having so many characters and lines of action (plots and subplots) that the intensity of the main action is diluted. Another charge is that none of the major characters is a fully developed, lifelike, and interesting figure. About such indictments, readers have to make up their own minds. The book certainly has variety. Aside from diversified characters and plot lines, it combines romance and realism and resembles more than one fictional genre. In part, Bleak House is what the Germans call a Bildungsroman (literally, a formation novel), a story dealing with young people's initiation into the adult world. It is also partly a romance and partly a murder mystery (in fact, it is the first British novel in which a professional detective figures strongly). Bleak House is also a novel of social criticism. The main point of the novel is the needless suffering caused by the inefficiency and inhumanity of the law and, by extension, of all forms of institutionalized inhumanity. Both the social criticism and the comic elements are typical of Dickens' novels. Typical also are several other features of Bleak House. As in almost all of Dickens' fiction, the main setting is the city. It is the city, not the country, that brings his imagination to its richest life, and, of course, it is in the city that the worst and the greatest number of social problems are manifested. As usual, too, there are many characters. Several are vivid they "come alive" to our imagination. Most of the characters are distinctly "good" or "bad" rather than in-between. Few, if any,

undergo a significant change (development). And, as is often the case, there is one character who is so benevolent (and well off) that he is able to reward the deserving and bring events to a conclusion that is at least typical of Dickens and of Victorian novels in general. No less characteristic is the abundance of highly dramatic (tense, high-pitched, or otherwise striking) incidents. There is the inevitable fascination with eccentrics and grotesque people and places like Krook and his shop and Mr. Snagsby and the paupers cemetery. And, of course, there is the sympathetic portrayal of a beleaguered child here, little Jo. "Pure" that is, virginal, incorruptible, and self-sacrificing heroines like Esther Summerson and Ada Clare are as Dickensian as anything can be. So are happy endings, and though Bleak House presents undeserved sufferings and untimely deaths, the story does end happily for several of the principal characters, including John Jarndyce, Esther, Ada, and Allan Woodcourt. Dickens' novels especially those prior to Bleak House are often marred by incoherence: Sometimes the main point they start to make is abandoned; in other cases, no main point ever seems to develop. In this respect, Bleak House is atypical: No one can miss the insistent theme of the malaise and misfortune caused by "the law's delay." Untypical also is the emotional restraint. In earlier novels, Dickens often allows his characters (or himself as narrator) to express certain sentiments especially pathos and gushy praise of "goodness" in exaggerated terms and at length. Such effusions, acceptable to most readers in Dickens' era, seem sentimental or even maudlin today. Bleak House also breaks away from Dickens' earlier habit of relying heavily on coincidences that add drama and help the author out of plot difficulties but remain cheap and wildly implausible. In Bleak House, Dickens seldom seems to be "stretching things." A common method of publishing novels in Victorian England was serialization in monthly magazines. Dickens published Bleak House in monthly installments in his own highly successful magazine Household Words between March 1852 and September 1853. Serialization affected Bleak House in various ways. First, serialization meant that Dickens wrote as he went along: He did not outline the entire novel or even plan very far ahead in fact, he was often so busy that he could barely meet the printer's monthly deadline for receiving the manuscript of the forthcoming installment. With some of

Dickens' novels, this haste and extemporaneity resulted in some loose plot construction and in patches of writing that lacked polish. In Bleak House, Dickens managed to avoid these pitfalls of the serial method. The plot, though complicated, is tightly woven, and the prose style is consistently effective. Serialization may even have worked to Dickens' advantage, in this case at least. The magazine readers had a whole month to let their memory of the previous installment grow dim. The best way around this difficulty was for the writer to create really memorable scenes and characters. Thus, serialization may have prodded Dickens to offer striking material and suspenseful narration. It may have encouraged his already well developed taste for caricature highly simplified but striking character portrayal and for grotesquerie: Both are inherently attention-getting, arresting. Unusual prose style itself is one way of producing a vivid impression. In Bleak House, inventive wording, dynamic sentences, sustained, energetic irony, and present-tense narration contribute enormously to keeping the reader's interest. Themes or motifs are often presented through symbols that is, images used in such a way as to suggest a meaning beyond the physical facts of the images themselves. Two quite effective symbols in Bleak House are the fog and "the Roman" who points down from Mr. Tulkinghorn's ceiling and symbolizes the theme of retribution, of evil ultimately bringing ruin upon itself. Skillfully handled, symbolism adds both impact and unity to a literary work or, for that matter, to any piece of writing. It has the impact (also called "power") of the concrete, and it helps unify because it repeats in a different form the motifs that are being presented through plot and character portrayal. Symbolism is commonly called a "device" or "technique," but these terms are somewhat misleading because they imply conscious manipulation by the author and also imply that effective symbolism is external and might be learned by anyone in a classroom or from an instruction manual on how to write. At its best, symbolism comes straight out of the individual writer's unconscious artistry: It is instinctive and individual and often a mark of genius. Symbols are often used to foreshadow later events in a story.

In turn, the "technique" of foreshadowing lends unity to the story because it prepares us by dealing with things that will be developed later on. The Bleak House fog is a complex symbol that foreshadows several motifs of importance. Richard Carstone, for example, gradually becomes "lost," unable to "see," in the mental and spiritual fog generated by the High Court of Chancery. Great Expectations By Charles Dickens Great Expectations at a Glance Charles Dickens's Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, an English orphan who rises to wealth, deserts his true friends, and becomes humbled by his own arrogance. It also introduces one of the more colorful characters in literature: Miss Havisham. Charles Dickens set Great Expectations during the time that England was becoming a wealthy world power. Machines were making factories more productive, yet people lived in awful conditions, and such themes carry into the story. Type of Work: serial story turned novel Genres: bildungsroman; Victorian Literature; social commentary First Published: December 1860April 1861 in weekly installments to a magazine; July 1861 as a novel in 3 volumes; November 1862 as a whole novel Setting: Early 1800s; London, England, and around the marshes of Kent Main Characters: Pip; Joe Gargery; Magwitch; Mrs. Joe; Miss Havisham; Estella; Jaggers and Wemmick Major Thematic Topics: good versus evil; moral redemption from sin; wealth and its equal power to help or corrupt; personal responsibility; awareness and acceptance of consequences from one's choices; abandonment; guilt; shame; desire; secrecy; gratitude; ambition; obsession/emotional manipulation versus real love; class structure and social rules; snobbery; child exploitation; the corruption and problems of the educational and legal systems; the need for prison reform; religious attitudes of the time; the effect of the increasing trade and industrialization on people's lives; the Victorian work ethic (or lack thereof) Motifs: sense of location; criminals; social expectations

Major Symbols: Miss Havisham's house; money Movie Versions: Great Expectations (1946); Great Expectations (1999) The three most important aspects of Great Expectations:

Great Expectations is a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel. Other examples of this form include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Great Expectations is unusual in that its main character, Pip, is often hard to sympathize with because of his snobbery and the resulting bad behavior he exhibits toward some of the other characters, like Joe Gargery. Like much of Charles Dickens's work, Great Expectations was first published in a popular magazine, in regular installments of a few chapters each. Many of the novel's chapters end with a lack of dramatic resolution, which was intended to encourage readers to buy the next installment. Over the years since the novel's publication, many critics have objected to its happy ending, with its implication that Pip and Estella will marry; these critics have said that such a conclusion is inconsistent with the characters as we have come to know them. In fact, Dickens originally wrote an ending in which Pip and Estella meet and then part forever after a few conciliatory words.

Great Expectations By Charles Dickens Book Summary Part I Pip is an orphan living on the Kent marshes with his abusive sister and her husband, Joe Gargery, the village blacksmith. While exploring in the churchyard near the tombstones of his parents, Pip is accosted by an escaped convict. The convict scares Pip into stealing food for him, as well as a metal file to saw off the convict's leg iron. Returning with these the next morning, Pip discovers a second escaped convict, an enemy of the first one. Shortly afterward, both convicts are recaptured while fighting each other. Pip's pompous Uncle Pumblechook arranges for Pip to go to the house of a wealthy reclusive woman, Miss Havisham, to play with her adopted daughter, Estella. The house is a strange nightmare-world. Miss Havisham's fianc jilted her on her wedding day and she still wears her old wedding

gown, although she's now elderly and wheel-chair-bound. The house has been left as it was on her wedding day and even the old wedding cake is still on the table. Estella is beautiful but haughty and tells Pip that he is coarse and common. Pip is immediately attracted to Estella in spite of how she and Miss Havisham treat him. Although the visits are emotionally painful and demeaning, Pip continues to go there for several months to play with Estella and to wheel Miss Havisham around. He also meets her toady relatives who want her money and hate Pip. Pip does earn a kiss from Estella when he beats one of the relatives, the Pale Young Gentleman, in a fistfight. Pip tries to better himself to win Estella's admiration by working harder with his friend, Biddy, at night school. Biddy's grandmother runs the night school. After a number of months, Miss Havisham pays for Pip's blacksmithing apprenticeship with Joe. Pip had looked forward to that for years, but now that he has seen "genteel" life, he views the forge as a death sentence. However, he hides his feelings from Joe and performs his duties. During this time, he encounters a strange man at the Jolly Bargemen, a local pub. The man has the file that Pip stole for the convict years before. The man gives Pip two one-pound notes. Pip continues to visit Miss Havisham on his birthday and on one of these occasions, his leaving work early instigates a fistfight between Joe and Joe's assistant, Dolge Orlick. Orlick resents Pip and hates Pip's abusive sister. On his way home from that visit, Pip finds out his sister was almost murdered and is now mentally crippled. Biddy comes to live with them to help out. Pip is attracted to her even though she is not educated and polished like Estella. One evening, a powerful London lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, visits Pip and Joe and informs them that Pip has "great expectations." Pip is overjoyed and assumes the windfall is from Miss Havisham, who wants to prepare him for Estella. He gets a new suit of clothes and is amazed at how differently he is treated by Mr. Trabb, the tailor, and by Uncle Pumblechook. When Pip gets Trabb's shop boy in trouble for not treating Pip with respect, he realizes how money changes things. He has a conversation with Biddy and asks her to work on "improving" Joe. Pip accuses her of being jealous of him when she suggests Joe does not need improving. By the end of the week, Pip is on his way to London to become a gentleman. Part II

In London, Pip meets with Jaggers and his clerk, Mr. Wemmick. Wemmick brings Pip to the apartment of Herbert Pocket, who, Pip discovers, is the Pale Young Gentleman he fought at Miss Havisham's. Pip is to study with Herbert's father, Mr. Matthew Pocket, to learn how to be a gentleman. Pip and Herbert become good friends and Herbert nicknames Pip, Handel. Pip spends part of his time with Herbert and part of his time with the Pocket family. Also living at the Pocket's family home are two other "gentlemen students," Startop and Bentley Drummle. Drummle and Pip do not get along, especially later, when Drummle becomes involved with Estella. Pip is embarrassed when Joe visits him in London with a message from Miss Havisham and cannot wait for Joe to leave. When Pip returns home to see Miss Havisham, he avoids Joe's forge. Miss Havisham informs Pip he is to accompany Estella to London where she will live with a wealthy society woman. Pip is convinced Miss Havisham intends Estella for him. In London, he spends his time visiting with Estella, spending too much money with Herbert, and joining a group of useless rich men called the Finches. He also makes friends with Jaggers' clerk, Wemmick, and realizes that the stiff legal clerk has a different, kinder personality at home. Pip also realizes that he is harming Herbert financially with their debts, and with Wemmick's help, secretly arranges to set Herbert up in business with a merchant named Clarriker. During this time, Pip's sister dies. He returns for her funeral and is remorseful over his abandonment of Joe and Biddy. He promises he will visit more often and is angry when Biddy implies that she does not believe him. On a stormy evening back in London, Pip's world changes dramatically with the arrival of a ragged stranger whom Pip realizes is the convict from the marshes years ago. The convict, whose name is Magwitch, had been sent to Australia and was to never return to England under penalty of death. The convict made a fortune in Australia and has risked death to return and tell Pip that he is the source of Pip's expectations. Pip is disgusted and devastated, something Magwitch, in his happiness to see his "gentleman," does not notice. Pip now knows that Miss Havisham has not been preparing him for Estella, and that with his money coming from a convict he can never have Estella. He also realizes he deserted Joe for a convict's money. Part III

Magwitch explains to Pip that he has come to give him his full inheritance as thanks for his help on the marshes years before. He tells Pip about the other convict, a man named Compeyson. Pip later learns from Herbert that Compeyson was the same man who broke Miss Havisham's heart. Pip decides he will take no more of Magwitch's money. However, he feels responsible for the danger the man is in and will find a way to get him safely out of the country. Pip is crushed to hear that Bentley Drummle is to marry Estella. Pip visits with her and Miss Havisham and pleads with her not to do this. He professes his deep love, which she cannot fathom, and tells her that he would be happy if she married another as long as it was not Drummle. During this conversation, Estella and Miss Havisham have an argument that shows she cannot love Miss Havisham, either. Miss Havisham realizes the depth of the damage she has done and is heartbroken. Returning to London, Pip learns from Wemmick that Compeyson is watching Magwitch. Herbert and Pip hide Magwitch and devise an escape plan. Pip also gets an anonymous note to come to the marshes where someone has information about Magwitch. He returns home and visits Miss Havisham before going to the marshes. She begs his forgiveness and agrees to Pip's request to help fund Herbert Pocket's new business. Pip starts to leave then returns to see Miss Havisham's dress on fire. He saves her but she is very ill afterward. He goes to the marshes, where he is captured by Orlick, who intends to kill him. Rescue comes from Herbert and Startop who had followed him from London. Trabb's shop boy led them to the marshes. They return to London and carry out their escape plan with Magwitch, but Compeyson has informed the authorities and they are caught. Compeyson and Magwitch struggle and fall into the river. Compeyson drowns and Magwitch is hurt, then imprisoned and sentenced to die. Pip by now has figured out Magwitch is Estella's father. He visits and cares for Magwitch until the man dies in prison. Afterward, Pip attends Wemmick's wedding. Pip also gets very sick and is himself arrested for not paying his debts. Joe comes and nurses Pip back to health and tells him Miss Havisham has died, leaving a large amount of money to Mr. Matthew Pocket. Before returning to his forge, Joe also pays off Pip's debt. Pip goes home, intending to make amends with Joe and marry Biddy. He arrives just in time to celebrate Joe and Biddy's wedding. Pip leaves shortly afterward for eleven years in Cairo, working with Herbert in his business. When he returns, he visits with Joe

and Biddy and meets their son, little Pip. He also meets with Estella. She is a widow now after years in an abusive marriage to Drummle. She and Pip part, but the implication is that this time they will be together. Critical Essays Children and 19th-Century England For thousands of years, families put their children to work on their farms or in whatever labor was necessary for survival only children of the wealthy and powerful escaped this fate. Until the last one hundred years or so, children were considered by most societies to be the property of their parents. They had little protection from governments who viewed children as having no human or civil rights outside of their parents' wishes, and Great Expectations brings some of these conditions to light. The industrial revolution in early nineteenth-century England (the industrial revolution started about one hundred years later in the United States) made things worse. Laborers were in greater demand than ever. Mines, factories, and shops needed help, and not enough men or women could fill their needs. Children were cheap, plentiful, and easy to control. Orphanages and even parents would give their children to the owners of cotton mills and other operations in exchange for the cost of maintaining them. At that time, the government didn't establish a minimum age, wage, or working hours. Children as young as five or six were forced to work thirteen to sixteen hours a day for slave wages and barely any food. The Sadler Committee, investigating textile factory conditions for Parliament in 1832, discovered children working from six in the morning to nine at night with no breakfast, one hour for lunch, and a two-mile walk home. Children late for work were often beaten, and if they worked too slowly or fell asleep at the machines, they were hit with a strap, sometimes severely. There was no family time and some of them did not get supper because they were too tired to wait for it. Children who were "bound" to companies often tried to run away. If they were caught, they were whipped. Aside from being underfed, exhausted, sick, or injured, children spending so many hours a day over factory machines often had bowed legs and poorly developed limbs and muscles. The coal mines were worse, with young children having to travel through the mines without any light, often carrying loads while walking in water that

was up to their calves. The main reason for employing women and children in the mines was that they would work for less than a man would accept. If a child was not "lucky" enough to be employed in these manners, they had the unpleasant option of life on the streets, with its raw sewage, rotting animal and vegetable wastes in the streets, rats, disease, and bad water. They also had to find food and a place to stay out of the rain and cold. Turning to crime for survival was not an act of greed so much as one of pure need. Small wonder, then, that Magwitch turned to crime at a young age. As the century progressed, laws were passed that outlawed infant abandonment and failure to provide shelter, clothing, food, and medical care. In 1884, national laws in Britain protected children in their own homes. In addition, Parliament regulated working conditions, minimum age for working, and the length of the workday for children. Laws for mandatory schooling, however, did not come until the twentieth century. Study Help Famous Quotes from Great Expectations Here are examples of some of the most famous quotes from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (1861). These will help you gain a deeper understanding of this complex and sophisticated story by one of Britain's greatest writers. "I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the arguments of my best friends." Chapter 4 "We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart." Chapter 7 "In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice." Chapter 8 "If you can't get to be oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked." Chapter 9

" . . . think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day." Chapter 9 "There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly-entered road of apprenticeship to Joe." Chapter 14 " . . . what would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me so!" Chapter 17 " . . . it [felt] very sorrowful and strange that this first night of my bright fortunes should be the loneliest I had ever known." Chapter 18 "Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle." Chapter 19 " . . . no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner . . . no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself." Chapter 22 " . . . one [man's] a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Divisions among such must come, and must be met as they come." Chapter 27 " . . . how strange it was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime; that in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter evening I should have first encountered it; that it should have reappeared on two occasions, starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone; that it should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement." Chapter 32 "'So,' said Estella, 'I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me." Chapter 38

I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to Biddy now, for any consideration: simply, I suppose, because my sense of my own worthless conduct to them was greater than every consideration. No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never, never, undo what I had done." Chapter 39 "The imaginary student pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not more wretched than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and recoiling from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the fonder he was of me." Chapter 40 "It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practice on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the gravity of what she did. But I think she did not." "I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride, found vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker; I knew equally well." Chapter 49 "For now my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted, wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe." Chapter 54 "I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her." Chapter 59 Hard Times By Charles Dickens About Hard Times Hard Times, a social protest novel of nineteenth-century England, is aptly titled. Not only does the working class, known as the "Hands," have a "hard

time" in this novel; so do the other classes as well. Dickens divided the novel into three separate books, two of which, "Sowing" and "Reaping," exemplify the biblical concept of "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7). The third book, entitled "Garnering," Dickens paraphrased from the book of Ruth, in which Ruth garnered grain in the fields of Boaz. Each of his major characters sows, each reaps, and each garners what is left. Since Charles Dickens wrote of the conditions and the people of his time, it is worthwhile to understand the period in which he lived and worked. No British sovereign since Queen Elizabeth I has exerted such a profound influence on an age as did Queen Victoria (1837-1901). She presided over the period rather than shaped it. The nineteenth century was an age of continual change and unparalleled expansion in almost every field of activity. Not only was it an era of reform, industrialization, achievement in science, government, literature, and world expansion but also a time when people struggled to assert their independence. Man, represented en masse as the laboring class, rose in power and prosperity and gave his voice to government. There were great intellectual and spiritual disturbances both in society and within the individual. The literature of the period reflects the conflict between the advocates of the triumphant material prosperity of the country and those who felt it had been achieved by the exploitation of human beings at the expense of spiritual and esthetic values. In theory, people of the period committed themselves on the whole to a hard-headed utilitarianism, yet most of the literature is idealistic and romantic. The prophets of the time deplored the inroads of science upon religious faith, but the Church of England was revivified by the Oxford Movement; evangelical Protestantism was never stronger and more active; and the Roman Catholic Church was becoming an increasingly powerful religious force in England. Not even in politics were the issues clear-cut. The Whigs prepared the way for the great economic reform of the age, the repeal of the Corn Laws; but it was a Tory leader, Sir Robert Peel, who finally brought that repeal through Parliament.

This century, marked by the Industrial Revolution, was also a century of political and economic unrest in the world: America was torn by the strife of the Civil War; France was faced with the problem of recovery from the wars of Napoleon; and Germany was emerging as a great power. The Industrial Revolution, though productive of much good, created deplorable living conditions in England. Overcrowding in the cities as a consequence of the population shift from rural to urban areas and the increase in the numbers of immigrants from poverty-stricken Ireland resulted in disease and hunger for thousands of the laboring class. But with the fall of Napoleon, the returning soldiers added not only to the growing numbers of workers but also to the hunger and misery. With the advent of the power loom came unemployment. A surplus labor supply caused wages to drop. Whole families, from the youngest to the oldest, had to enter the factories, the woolen mills, the coal mines, or the cotton mills in order to survive. Children were exploited by employers; for a pittance a day a nine-year-old worked twelve and fourteen hours in the mills, tied to the machines, or in the coal mines pulling carts to take the coal from the shafts. Their fingers were smaller and quicker than those of adults; thus, for picking out the briars and burrs from both cotton and wool, employers preferred to hire children. Studies of the working and living conditions in England between 1800 and 1834 showed that 82 percent of the workers in the mills were between the ages of eleven and eighteen. Many of these studies proved that 62 percent of the workers in the fabric mills had tuberculosis. The factories were open, barnlike structures, not equipped with any system of heat and ventilation. These studies, presented to Parliament, resulted in some attempt to bring about reforms in working conditions and to alleviate some of the dire poverty in England. In 1802, the Health Act was passed to provide two hours of instruction for all apprentices. In 1819, a child labor law was enacted which limited to eleven hours a day the working hours of children five to eleven years of age; however, this law was not enforced. The first great "Victorian" reform antedated Queen Victoria by five years. Until 1832 the old Tudor list of boroughs was still in use. As a result, large towns of recent growth had no representation in Parliament, while some unpopulated localities retained theirs. In essence, the lords who controlled these boroughs (known as rotten boroughs in history) sold seats to the highest bidders. This political pattern was broken when the Reform Bill of

1832 abolished all boroughs with fewer than two thousand inhabitants and decreased by 50 percent the number of representatives admitted from towns with a population between two thousand and four thousand. Only after rioting and a threat of civil war did the House of Lords approve the Reform Bill. With this bill came a new type of Parliament one with representatives from the rising middle class-and several other important reforms. In 1833, the Emancipation Bill ended slavery in British colonies, with heavy compensation to the owners. Even though chattel slavery was abolished, industrial slavery continued. Also in 1833 came the first important Factory Law, one which prohibited the employment of children under the age of nine. Under this law, children between the ages of nine and thirteen could not work for more than nine hours a day. Night work was prohibited for persons under twenty-one years of age and for all women. By 1849, subsequent legislation provided half day or alternate days of schooling for the factory children, thus cutting down the working hours of children fourteen or under. The Poor Law of 1834 provided for workhouses; indigent persons, accustomed to living where they pleased, bitterly resented this law, which compelled them to live with their families in workhouses In fact, the living conditions were so bad that these workhouses were named the "Bastilles of the Poor." Here the poor people, dependent upon the government dole, were subjected to the inhuman treatment of cruel supervisors; an example is Mr. Bumble in Dickens' Oliver Twist. If the people rejected this rule of body and soul, they had two alternatives as the machines took more jobs and the wages dropped either steal or starve. Conditions in prisons were even more deplorable than in the workhouses. Debtors' prison, as revealed in Dickens' David Copperfield, was a penalty worse than death. The undemocratic character of the Reform Bill of 1832, the unpopularity of the Poor Law, and the unhappy conditions of the laborers led to the Chartist Movement of the 1840s. The demands of the Chartist Movement were the abolition of property qualifications for members of Parliament, salaries for members of Parliament, annual election of Parliament, equal electoral districts, equal manhood suffrage, and voting by secret ballot. Chartism, the most formidable working-class movement England had ever seen, failed. The Chartists had no way to identify their cause with the interests of any

influential class. Ultimately, though, most of the ends they sought were achieved through free discussion and legislative action. In 1846, the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, led the repeal of the Corn Laws of 1815. With the repeal of these laws, which were nothing more than protective tariffs in the interest of the landlords and farmers to prevent the importation of cheap foreign grain, came a period of free trade and a rapid increase in manufacture and commerce which gave the working class an opportunity to exist outside the workhouses. As the country awoke to the degradation of the working classes, industrial reform proceeded gradually but inevitably, in spite of the advocates of laissez-faire and industrial freedom. The political life of the nineteenth century was tied up with its economic theories. The doctrine of laissez-faire (let alone), first projected by Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, was later elaborated upon by Jeremy Bentham and T. R. Malthus, whose doctrine of Utility was the principle of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." In other words, this principle meant that the government should allow the economic situation to adjust itself naturally through the laws of supply and demand. With this system, a person at one extreme be-comes a millionaire and at the other, a beggar. Thomas Carlyle called this system of economy "the dismal science." Dickens, influenced by Carlyle, castigated it again and again. The Utilitarians, however, helped bring about the repeal of the Corn Laws and to abolish cruel punishment. When Victoria became queen, there were four hundred and thirty-eight offenses punishable by death. During her reign, the death penalty was limited to two offenses murder and treason. With the softening of the penalties and the stressing of prevention and correction came a decrease in crime. Even though writers of the period protested human degradation under modern industrialism, the main factor in improvement of conditions for labor was not outside sympathy but the initiative taken by the workers themselves. They learned that organized trade unions were more constructive to their welfare than riots and the destruction of machines, which had occurred during the Chartist Movement. Gradually the laboring classes won the right to help themselves. Trade unions were legalized in 1864; two workingmen candidates were elected to Parliament in 1874. Karl Marx founded the first International Workingmen's Association in London in 1864; three years later he published Das Kapital, a book of

modern communism. In 1884, the Fabian Society appeared, headed by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, and other upper middleclass intellectuals. The Fabians believed that socialism would come about gradually without violence. Once the rights of the workers were recognized, education became of interest to Parliament. In 1870, the Elementary Education Bill provided education for all; in 1891, free common education for all became compulsory. Poet George Meredith and economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill worked for "female emancipation." From this period of change came such women as Florence Nightingale and Frances Powers. Politics and economics do not make up the whole of a nation's life. In the nineteenth century, both religion and science affected the thought and the literature of the period. In 1833, after the Reform Bill of 1832, a group of Oxford men, dissatisfied with the conditions of the Church of England, began the Oxford Movement with the purpose of bringing about in the Church a reformation which would increase spiritual power and emphasize and restore the Catholic doctrine and ritual. Begun by John Keble, the movement carried on its reforms primarily through a series of papers called Tracts for the Times. Chief among the reformers was John Henry Newman, a vicar of St. Mary's. The second half of Queen Victoria's reign was one of prosperity and advancement in science. Inventions such as the steam engine, the telephone, telegraph, and the wireless made communication easier and simpler. Man became curious about and interested in the unknown. New scientific and philosophic research in the fields of geology and biology influenced the religious mind of England. A series of discoveries with respect to Man's origin challenged accepted opinions regarding the universe and our place in it. Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830-33) established a continuous history of life on this planet; Sir Frances Galton did pioneer work in the field of heredity; Charles Darwin's Origin of Species gave the world the theory of evolution. The Origin of Species maintained that all living creatures had developed through infinite differentiations from a single source. This one work had the most profound influence of all secular writings on the thinking of the period. Following its publication, there were three schools of thought concerning Man's origin: first, Darwin's evidence did not justify his conclusions; therefore, nothing had changed in religious beliefs regarding origin and creation. Second, Darwin's evidence had left no

room for God in the universe; therefore, everything had changed and thinking must change. Third, Darwin's theories simply reaffirmed the Biblical concepts; therefore, "evolution is just God's way of doing things." The conflict between the theologians and the scientists raged not only throughout the remainder of the century but was inevitably reflected in the literature of the period. Poets of the era can be classified through their attitudes toward religion and science. Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning stand as poets of faith, whereas Matthew Arnold and Arthur Hugh Clough represent the skeptics and the doubters. Later Victorian verse showed less of the conflict than the earlier. Historians have called Charles Dickens the greatest of the Victorian novelists. His creative genius was surpassed only by that of Shakespeare. Many later novelists were to feel the influence of this writer, whose voice became the trumpet of protest against economic conditions of the age. George Bernard Shaw once said that Little Dorrit was as seditious a book as Das Kapital. Thus, according to critics, Dickens' Hard Times is a relentless indictment of the callous greed of the Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy. Summary Book One consists of sixteen chapters in which are sown not only the seeds of the plot but also the seeds of the characters. As these seeds are sown, so shall they be reaped. These chapters, titled "The One Thing Needful," "Murdering the Innocent," and "A Loophole," give the seeds that Thomas Gradgrind sows. He sows the seeds of Fact, not Fancy; of sense, not sentimentality; of conformity, not curiosity. There is only proof, not poetry for him. His very description is one of fact: "square forefinger . . . square wall of a forehead . . . square coat . . . square legs, square shoulders." In the second chapter, Thomas Gradgrind teaches a lesson as an example for the schoolmaster, Mr. M'Choakumchild, a man who chokes children with Facts. Thomas Gradgrind tries to fill the "little pitchers" who are numbered, not named with facts. Sissy Jupe, alone, is the only "little vessel" who cannot be filled with facts, such as the statistical description of a horse. She has lived too long among the "savages" of the circus to perform

properly in this school. Here Bitzer, later to show how well he has learned his lesson, can recite all of the physical attributes of a horse. In the third chapter, some of the seeds that Thomas Gradgrind has sown appear not to have taken root. On his way home from his successful lesson to the children, he spies his own children, Louisa and Tom Jr., peeping through a hole at the circus people of Sleary's Horse-riding. Although he had sown seeds of Fact and seeds of not wondering, there was a loophole: his two children desired to learn more than what they had been taught in the "lecturing castle" or in Stone Lodge. At Stone Lodge, each of the five little Gradgrinds has his cabinets of Facts which he must absorb. Gradgrind scolds his erring offspring, admonishing them by asking, "What would Mr. Bounderby say?" Here one sees that Gradgrind, though retired from the hardware business and a member of Parliament, is aware of the wealth and influence of the factory owner. The reader sees here, too, that Louisa, a girl of fifteen or sixteen, is protective toward her younger brother, Tom. A Tale of Two Cities at a Glance A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, deals with the major themes of duality, revolution, and resurrection. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times in London and Paris, as economic and political unrest lead to the American and French Revolutions. The main characters in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities Doctor Alexandre Manette, Charles Darnay, and Sydney Carton are all recalled to life, or resurrected, in different ways as turmoil erupts. Written by: Charles Dickens Type of Work: novel Genres: historical fiction; political commentary First Published: In weekly installments in All the Year Round, from April 30 to November 29, 1859 Setting: London and Paris, 17751792 Main Characters: Doctor Alexandre Manette; Lucie Manette (later Darnay); Charles Darnay; Sydney Carton; Therese Defarge; Ernest Defarge; Jerry Cruncher; Mr. Lorry; Miss Pross

Major Thematic Topics: duality; revolution; resurrection; violence; centrality of women; aristocratic versus peasant Motifs: darkness; restricted by society; duality Major Symbols: Madame Defarge's Knitting; motherhood The three most important aspects of A Tale of Two Cities:

A Tale of Two Cities is told from the omniscient, or all-knowing, point of view. The narrator, or storyteller, who is never identified, has access to the thoughts and feelings of all the characters. A Tale of Two Cities, which is one of two historical novels written by Charles Dickens, is set in London and in Paris and the French countryside at the time of the French Revolution. The book is sympathetic to the overthrow of the French aristocracy but highly critical of the reign of terror that followed. Dickens characterizes the men and women who populate A Tale of Two Cities less by what the book's narrator or the characters themselves say, and more by what they do. As a result, the novel seems somewhat modern, despite being set in the 18th century and written in the 19th century.

Critical Essays The Centrality of Women in A Tale of Two Cities Curiously, one of the aspects readers most commonly overlook when studying A Tale of Two Cities is the centrality of women in the story. The characters around whom the action revolves in both London and Paris are women: Lucie Manette and Madame Defarge. Additionally, Dickens uses women throughout the book to represent the moral climate of a group or family. Although Dickens may not develop his female characters as fully as he does some of the male characters in A Tale of Two Cities, nevertheless, the women provide the men in the novel with an emotional foundation that causes the men to act for or react against what the women represent. Lucie and Madame Defarge, for instance, drive the action in their respective spheres of influence. As the "golden thread"that binds the lives of Doctor Manette, Mr. Lorry, Darnay, and Carton together, Lucie is a passive character who influences others through who she is rather than by what she does. The comfortable home she creates comforts the men in her life and her devout compassion for others inspires them. Her goodness enables them to

become more than they are and to find the strength to escape the prisons of their lives. On the other hand, Madame Defarge stands at the center of the revolutionary activity in Paris as an active agent of change, even when she is just sitting in the wine-shop and knitting her death register. Madame Defarge instigates hatred and violence, exemplified by her leadership in the mob scenes and the way The Vengeance and Jacques Three feed off of her desire to exterminate the Evrmonde line. Her patient ruthlessness helps to support her husband when he has doubts about the Revolution. In the end, however, her desire for revenge becomes something Monsieur Defarge reacts against as he recognizes that the killing must end somewhere. Dickens also portrays the other women in the novel as either nurturing life or destroying it. Mothers play an especially important role in this sense, as Dickens differentiates between natural and unnatural mothers. Women such as Darnay's mother, Madame Evrmonde, and Lucie's mother, Madame Manette, represented mothers who die young but leave their children with a sense of conscience and love. Madame Evrmonde's exhortations to Darnay to atone for the family's wrongdoing, for instance, motivate him to risk his life in order to help others. Lucie is also a natural mother, nurturing her daughter and protecting her from harm. The women of Monseigneur's court, however, represent unnatural mothers, who care so little for their children that they push them off on wet nurses and nannies and pretend that the children don't even exist. Similarly, Dickens portrays even the mothers of Saint Antoine who do nurture their children as unnatural in the fact that they can spend the day as part of a vicious mob killing and beheading people and then return home smeared with blood to play with their children. The behaviors of both the aristocratic and the peasant women are destructive in that they either create an environment that lacks love and guidance or they guide the next generation into further anger and violence. About Oliver Twist In his preface to Oliver Twist, Dickens emphatically expressed resentment at the practice in popular literature of depicting rogues, like Macheath in The Beggar's Opera, as dashing figures, leading lively and colorful lives. He considers such misrepresentations as a potentially harmful influence on

impressionable minds. Dickens firmly maintains that the nature and behavior of his seemingly extreme characters reflect truth without distortion, however implausible they may seem. Dickens is frequently charged with offering a view of the world that exaggerates reality. A novelist, however, communicates his interpretation of life through the medium of fiction. His accomplishment grows out of a blend of experience and imagination. In judging the writer's success, we have to grant his purposes and goal. Dickens was fascinated by extreme behavior and attitudes. He had a peculiar talent for exaggeration. For him, real life was the springboard for fancy. Thus the world of story he created is a mirror in which the truths of the real world are reflected. Oliver Twist is a good illustration of Dickens's belief that the novel should do more than merely entertain. It should, he believed, be directed toward social reform. This does not mean Dickens was a propagandist who held forth idealistic goals as cures for the ills of the world. Although he bitterly attacks the defects of existing institutions government, the law, education, penal systems and mercilessly exposes the injustice and wretchedness inflicted by them, he does not suggest the overthrow of the established order. Nor will you find any easy answers or pat solutions. Dickens's attitudes and themes reflect a general approval of the English state and society. He could not have had such enormous popularity if he had not in a large measure voiced sentiments and values that motivated the readers of his times. Dickens looked upon almost all institutions with suspicion, including religious movements. In Hard Times, trade unionism is shown to be loaded with the potential for mischief, in the manner of all oppressive forces when those in power fall prey to corruption and abuse. Dickens had little confidence in systems as agencies of good but placed his faith in people. To bring about improvements, he depended upon the release of the goodness that he felt to be inherent in all human nature. Dickens kept a strong belief that people, if they were not stifled, would behave with fairness. As a result, he firmly hated all individuals, institutions, and systems that he regarded as standing in the way of natural human goodness. He does not believe this endowment of human goodness is indestructible. In Oliver Twist, he acknowledges that the trait of goodness in humanity can be irretrievably lost if it is subjected to ungoverned corrupting influences.

For this reason, Dickens lays great stress on environment in the development of character and regulation of conduct. Although he had little faith in the operation of politics, he rested his hopes for progress on education. But schooling must be well conceived and administered. In many of his books, Dickens demonstrates with the full strength of his satiric lash how education, in the hands of the wrong authority figures, can become as bad if not worse than ignorance. It is noteworthy that whenever Oliver Twist's fortunes begin to rise, his benefactors immediately take an interest in his education. Dickens is often accused of being weak or lacking in character portrayal. But in this regard, as in other feats of dramatic exposition, Dickens's distinctive gifts as a storyteller yielded the most remarkable creations. Dickens was more concerned with the outer behavior of people than he was with the exploration of psychological depths. For the most part, his characters are considered "flat" because they don't reveal varied facets of personality or develop as the narrative unfolds. Instead, they remain unchanged through the course of events and interaction with other characters. Since they are not gradually built up into complex human beings, characters may sometimes suddenly act contrary to expectations. Some of Dickens's more eccentric characters may seem overdrawn, but they usually discharge a serious function in his fiction. They are not to be looked upon as representative types of actual humanity. Second-rank characters regularly are given some identity tag or trait when they are first introduced, often by being labeled with some idiosyncrasy. They are readily remembered thereafter by the recurring peculiarity of speech or behavior, even when they have little to do with the mainstream of action. Thus, Dickens's secondary characters are usually the most memorable. His unsavory figures also tend to stand out more than the models of rectitude and propriety. This is because it is more difficult for a writer to dramatize or signify by a phrase or gesture. As a result, Dickens's protagonists are frequently pallid, unconvincing figures who lack the vitality and individuality that distinguish the villains and secondary characters. Dickens loved the operatic and demonstrative narrative intensity that has been called melodrama. His characters reflect this. The principals fall into two groups whose natures are predominantly white (virtuous or proper) or black (villainous and mean-spirited bordering on violent) . The serious characters between whom the essential conflict takes place therefore embody the extremes of virtue and viciousness.

The novels of Dickens are marked many would insist marred by an erratic looseness of construction that may confuse readers who are more used to unified works. In the case of Dickens, it may be difficult to discover what the center of a work is what it is precisely about which should be expressible in a succinct statement. The plot is woven out of an involved central intrigue that can be hard to unravel because of the distractions of subordinate and irrelevant incidents. The resort to melodrama, particularly in the rendition of great crucial scenes, can defeat the writer's designs. When the effort to portray tragic intensity lapses into melodrama and sentimentality, the effect upon the reader is reduced. Pathos must be utilized with care, otherwise readers may resent having their feelings exploited. In his humor , Dickens's exuberance also carried him beyond the bounds of moderation, but he seldom lost sight of his intentions. He liberally indulged in humorous riffs solely to ornament the story and amuse his audience. He also made use of humor for satiric effect by exaggerating weakness or vice to reduce it to maximum absurdity. When particularly aroused by an offense against humanity, Dickens may introduce the exaggeration of caustic irony saying the opposite of what he really meant, but trusting the reader to "get" the true intent that resolves into open sarcasm. But whatever faults Dickens may have, they are the faults of genius. Many of the technical flaws in his works were imposed by historical circumstances. He was not only a confirmed moralist but a supreme storyteller. He fully recognized that in order for the world to receive his message, his books had to be read. That meant that he had subtly to attract his readers by taking into account their tastes and desires. When Dickens began writing, the novel had not yet reached the state of development and acceptance it was later to reach. People who read novels expected to be entertained. Fiction was looked upon as light reading and at the time was not always considered respectable. Shrewd novelist that he was, Dickens provided his readers with lively diversion while soothing their consciences with moral flavoring. The novel as a literary form was still developing ,so Dickens followed the eighteenth-century tradition that favored long, rambling tales, freely embellished with uplifting attributes. In addition, the form of Dickens's

books was partially dictated by the needs of serial publication. Serialization prescribed an episodic structure rather than a tightly contrived plot conveyed by a dexterously linked story. Each installment needed to be in some degree an independent entity with its own center of interest, while at the same time leading up to a height of suspense in anticipation of the next issue. For Dickens, this episodic format meant that he was often writing the installments of a particular novel to keep up with the publication schedule of a magazine, sometimes barely keeping ahead of the typesetters. He had no opportunity for revising and polishing his efforts after a novel was finished, and a work might never be planned as a whole. The author sometimes knew no better than his readers what was to happen next. On November 3, 1837, writing about Oliver Twist, Dickens observed to his friend and biographer, John Forster: "I hope to do great things with Nancy. If I can only work out the idea I have formed of her, and of the female who is to contrast with her. . . ." In September 1838, when the novel was almost completed, he confided to Forster that he had not yet "disposed of the Jew Fagin, who is such an out and outer that I don't know what to make of him." In that same work, the author had intended to have Rose Maylie die, but he later rejected the opportunity for a pathetic scene and allowed her to recover. Whatever imperfections Dickens's writing may contain, his extraordinary popularity can leave no doubt that he was the reigning literary figure of his day. His works represented the blending of his genius with a tradition he inherited from the times in which he lived. In spite of his occasional grouchiness, Dickens supported the best of which Victorian England was capable. And each succeeding generation has affirmed the original judgment by paying homage to the generosity of his spirit and the immensity of his creative achievement. Critical Essays Early 19th-Century England During much of the long period beginning with the French Revolution (1789-92) and the following Napoleonic era, which lasted until 1815, England was caught up in the swirl of events on the continent of Europe, with resultant conflict at home. Early in the French Revolution, many Englishmen enthusiastically welcomed the overthrow of the old order. But as the violence and terror in France reached extreme heights, keen partisanship divided English society.

The upper levels of society the propertied and governing classes were naturally alarmed at the way events across the English Channel were stimulating radicalism among the populace. On the other hand, the underprivileged and the liberals were encouraged to agitate for improved conditions. Disorder, followed by repressive measures, became commonplace, particularly later, when England was at war with France. The struggle on the continent led to acute hardship among the English people. The heavy tax burden imposed to support military operations bore hardest on those least able to pay. Although the upper classes had relatively little need to sacrifice, the working classes were hit hard by rising prices and food scarcity. Their hardships were multiplied when the government issued paper currency, which produced inflation. At the same time, the prolonged economic struggle between France and its enemies deprived England of most of its markets for manufactured goods. Extensive unemployment brought on acute distress during the years 181113. In 1811, jobless workers in organized groups known as the Luddites roamed the country, destroying the machinery that they believed had replaced them in the labor market. In 1812, the year of Charles Dickens's birth, the destruction of manufacturing equipment was made punishable by death. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated and confined to the island of St. Helena for the remainder of his days. After the long period of bloody conflicts, peace was restored, resulting in a general jubilation. But optimism and high hopes were quickly shattered. The end of war plunged England into the most ruinous depression the nation had ever suffered. The working classes placed the blame for their woes on the landlords and industrialists. Once again violence and destruction swept the land, with the inevitable retaliation by the authorities. A climax was reached with the "Peterloo Massacre." In St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, on August 16, 1819, a regiment of cavalry charged an orderly assembly of citizens, killing eleven and injuring four hundred. Fierce public indignation followed the outrage, but officials openly gave support to the action. For a long time, one of England's major problems had been the support of paupers, whose numbers steadily increased. Direct relief had been in operation since the days of Queen Elizabeth. This outlay came to require the

imposition of crushing parish taxes. Abuses became rampant; many of the able-bodied preferred to live at public expense rather than to seek work. When the practice of supplementing starvation wages with relief payments developed, unscrupulous employers took advantage of the situation by lowering wages, and the independent worker who wanted to be selfsupporting was frustrated in his efforts. After the defeat of Napoleon, 400,000 veterans were added to the hordes of the unemployed, aggravating the crisis. In contrast to ugly appearances on the surface, there was an undercurrent of strong forces striving for improvement. The pressure of public opinion supported the efforts of reformers to rectify many old abuses. In 1800, 220 crimes, many of them obviously minor, were punishable by death. One result of these circumstances, which now seem barbaric, was that juries often refused to convict the accused. At the same time, prominent crusaders were campaigning relentlessly for abolition of capital punishment. By 1837, only 15 crimes carried the death penalty. Slavery also came under attack by humanitarian forces. In 1808, the slave trade was made illegal. In 1834, slavery was entirely abolished in British land possessions. The objective was quietly achieved through gradual transition and with generous compensation to former slave-owners. In the elections brought about by the crowning of William IV in 1830 as king, the Tories (conservatives who supported the established church and the traditional political structure) lost control of the government. With the power now in the hands of the Whigs (favorers of reform), the way was opened for an era of accelerated progress. Among the most urgently recommended steps was parliamentary reform. In 1829, the first Catholic was admitted to Parliament. In spite of determined opposition in the House of Lords, the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed. The bill eliminated many inequities in representation, and the middle class was enlarged. In 1833 came the beginning of child-labor laws. From that time on, an increased amount of legislation was enacted to control the hours of labor and working conditions for children and women in manufacturing plants.

A new concept was adopted to deal with the vexing issue of poverty. The Poor Law of 1834 provided that all able-bodied paupers must reside in workhouses. Inmates of the workhouses became objects of public stigma, and to further heighten the unpopularity of the institutions, living arrangements in them were deliberately made harsh. In one way, the plan was successful. Within three years, the cost of poor relief was reduced by over one-third. However, the system was sharply censured, and the increased prevalence of crime has been attributed to it. Dickens made the Poor Law of 1834 a conspicuous target of denunciation in Oliver Twist. On June 20, 1837, Queen Victoria came to the throne of England as the long period of middle-class ascendancy was gaining momentum. At that time, Dickens's hugely popular character, Mr. Pickwick (The Pickwick Papers) had already captured a devoted following. At the same time, the trials and ordeals of Oliver Twist were engaging the sympathies of a large, eager audience. The inauguration of the Victorian Age found twenty-five-year-old Charles Dickens firmly established on the road to literary fame that would take him to ever greater eminence throughout his life. Bathsheba Everdene has the enviable problem of coping with three suitors simultaneously. The first to appear is Gabriel Oak, a farmer as ordinary, stable, and sturdy as his name suggests. Perceiving her beauty, he proposes to her and is promptly rejected. He vows not to ask again. Oak's flock of sheep is tragically destroyed, and he is obliged to seek employment. Chance has it that in the search he spies a serious fire, hastens to aid in extinguishing it, and manages to obtain employment on the estate. Bathsheba inherits her uncle's farm, and it is she who employs Gabriel as a shepherd. She intends to manage the farm by herself. Her farmhands have reservations about the abilities of this woman, whom they think is a bit vain and capricious. Indeed, it is caprice that prompts her to send an anonymous valentine to a neighboring landowner, Mr. Boldwood, a middle-aged bachelor. His curiosity and, subsequently, his emotions are seriously aroused, and he becomes Bathsheba's second suitor. She rejects him, too, but he vows to pursue her until she consents to marry him. The vicissitudes of country life and the emergencies of farming, coupled with Bathsheba's temperament, cause Gabriel to be alternately fired and

rehired. He has made himself indispensable. He does his work, gives advice when asked, and usually withholds it when not consulted. But it is her third suitor, Sergeant Francis Troy, who, with his flattery, insouciance, and scarlet uniform, finally captures the interest of Bathsheba. Troy, who does not believe in promises, and laments with some truth that "women will be the death of me," has wronged a young serving maid. After a misunderstanding about the time and place where they were to be married, he left her. This fickle soldier marries Bathsheba and becomes an arrogant landlord. Months later, Fanny, his abandoned victim, dies in childbirth. Troy is stunned and so is Bathsheba, when she learns the truth. She feels indirectly responsible for the tragedy and knows that her marriage is over. Bathsheba is remorseful but somewhat relieved when Troy disappears. His clothes are found on the shore of a bay where there is a strong current. People accept the circumstantial evidence of his death, but Bathsheba knows intuitively that he is alive. Troy does return, over a year later, just as Boldwood, almost mad, is trying to exact Bathsheba's promise that she will marry him six years hence, when the law can declare her legally widowed. Troy interrupts the Christmas party that Boldwood is giving. The infuriated Boldwood shoots him. Troy is buried beside Fanny, his wronged love. Because of his insanity, Boldwood's sentence is eventually commuted to internment at Her Majesty's pleasure. Gabriel, who has served Bathsheba patiently and loyally all this time, marries her at the story's conclusion. The augury is that, having lived through tragedy together, the pair will now find happiness. Critical Essay Hardy's Philosophy and Ideas Hardy is primarily a storyteller and should be viewed more as a chronicler of moods and deeds than as a philosopher. Yet a novel such as Far from the Madding Crowd, which raises many questions about society, religion, morals, and the contrast between a good life and its rewards, is bound to make the reader curious about the author who brings them up. Hardy lived in an age of transition. The industrial revolution was in the process of destroying the agricultural life, and the subsequent shifting of population caused a disintegration of rural customs and traditions that had meant security, stability, and dignity for the people. It was a period when fundamental beliefs religious, social, scientific, and political were

shaken to their core and brought in their stead the "ache of modernism." The new philosophies failed to satisfy the emotional needs of many people. As a young man, Hardy read Darwin's Origin of the Species and Essays and Reviews (the manifesto of a few churchmen who held radical theological opinions), both of which were to influence his views toward religion. He found it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the idea of a beneficent, omnipotent, and omniscient deity with the fact of omnipresent evil and the persistent tendency of circumstances toward unhappiness. When one thinks of Hardy the novelist, that aspect of his work that comes to mind most readily is his frequent use of chance and circumstances in the development of his plots. But the reader must learn to view Hardy's stories in the light of the author's fatalistic outlook on life, for Hardy fluctuates between fatalism and determinism. Fatalism is a view of life which acknowledges that all action is controlled by the nature of things, or by a Fate which is a great, impersonal, primitive force existing through all eternity, absolutely independent of human wills and superior to any god created by man. Determinism, on the other hand, acknowledges that man's struggle against the will behind things is of no avail, that the laws of cause and effect are in operation that is, the human will is not free and human beings have no control over their own destiny, try as they may. Hardy sees life in terms of action, in the doomed struggle against the circumstantial forces against happiness. Incident, for example, plays an important role in causing joy or pain, and often an act of indiscretion in early youth can wreck one's chances for happiness. In Hardy's novels, then, Fate appears as an artistic motif in a great variety of forms chance and coincidence, nature, time, woman, and convention. None is Fate itself, but rather all of these are manifestations of the Immanent Will. The use of chance and coincidence as a means of furthering the plot was a technique used by many Victorian authors but with Hardy it becomes something more than a mere device. Fateful incidents (overheard conversations and undelivered letters, for instance) are the forces working against mere man in his efforts to control his own destiny. In addition, Fate appears in the form of nature, endowing it with varying moods that affect the lives of the characters. Those who are most in harmony with their environment are usually the most contented; similarly, those who can appreciate the joys of nature can find solace in it. Yet nature can take on sinister aspects, becoming more of an actor than just a setting for the action.

Besides the importance of nature in Hardy's novels, one should consider the concept of time. There is tremendous importance placed on the moment, for time is a great series of moments. The joys of life are transitory and the moments of joy may be turned to bitterness by time. Woman, also, is used by Hardy as one of Fate's most potent instruments for opposing man's happiness. Closer to primitive feelings than man, woman is helpless in the hands of Fate and carries out Fate's work. In her search for love, the motivating passion of her life, woman becomes an agent in her own destiny. In short, one is, according to Hardy, powerless to change the workings of Fate, but those things that are contrived by man social laws and convention, for example and which work against him can be changed by man. Man is not hopelessly doomed. Jude the Obscure By Thomas Hardy Book Summary Jude Fawley, an eleven-year-old boy, wants to follow the example of his teacher Mr. Phillotson, who leaves Marygreen for Christminster to take a university degree and to be ordained. Jude is being raised by his great-aunt, whom he helps in her bakery. He studies very hard on his own to prepare for the move, and to provide a means by which he can support himself at the university, he learns the trade of ecclesiastical stonework. He meets, desires, and marries Arabella Donn, who deceives him into marriage by making him think he has got her pregnant. They do not get along at all, and eventually Arabella leaves him to go with her family to Australia. Though delayed, Jude does get to Christminster, partly because of his aspirations but also partly because of the presence there of his cousin Sue Bridehead. He meets and falls in love with her, though the fact of his being married causes him to feel guilty. Sue will not return his love, and when he realizes that Phillotson, under whom she is now teaching, is interested in Sue, Jude is in despair. This plus the fact that he has made no headway on getting into the university and realizes he never will causes him to give up that part of his dream and leave Christminster. At Melchester he intends to pursue theological study and eventually enter the church at a lower level. Sue is there at a training college and is to marry Phillotson when she finishes, but she flees the school when punished for staying out all night with Jude. Jude is puzzled by Sue because her ideas are different from his and she will not return the feeling he has for her.

Shortly after he tells her he is married, she announces her marriage to Phillotson and asks Jude to give her away. He sees Arabella again, who is back from abroad, spends the night with her, and learns that she married in Australia. When he next encounters Sue, she tells him perhaps she shouldn't have married, and Jude vows to go on seeing her in spite of his aim to discipline himself to get into the church. When Jude's aunt dies, Sue comes to Marygreen for the funeral, and there she admits to him she is unhappy and can't give herself to Phillotson. The kiss Jude and Sue exchange when she leaves for Shaston causes him to think he has reached the point where he is no longer fit for the church; therefore, he burns his theological books and will profess nothing. Sue asks Phillotson to let her live apart from him, preferably with Jude, but he only allows her to live apart in the house until an instance of her repugnance to him causes him to decide to let her go. Sue goes to Jude and they travel to Aldbrickham, but she will not yet allow intimacy. Phillotson is dismissed from his job at Shaston when Sue never returns, and after seeing her later and not being able to get her back he decides to divorce her to give her complete freedom. After living together a year at Aldbrickham Jude and Sue have still not consummated their relationship, and though they repeatedly plan to be married they never go through with it. Only when Arabella appears and seems to threaten her hold on Jude does Sue allow intimacy. Arabella marries Cartlett, her Australian husband, again and sends to Jude her and Jude's son, Little Father Time. When opinion turns against Jude and Sue and he loses a job because of their reputation, they decide to leave Aldbrickham, and they live in many places as Jude works where he can find employment in anything other than ecclesiastical work, which he decides to give up. They now have two children of their own and another on the way. Having seen Sue in Kennetbridge, Arabella, whose husband has died, revives her interest in Jude, and when she encounters Phillotson, who is now in Marygreen, she tells him he was wrong to let Sue go. Jude, now ill and not working regularly, wants to return to Christminster. They do return to Christminster, arriving on a holiday, and Jude is upset by his return to the city that has meant so much to him and gives a speech to a

street crowd in an attempt to explain what his life has meant. Despairing talk by Sue triggers off a reaction in Little Father Time, and he hangs the other two children and himself. And the child Sue is carrying is born dead. Jude and Sue have reached the point where their views of life have about reversed, Jude becoming secular and Sue religious; and when Phillotson writes to ask Sue to come back to him, she agrees, thinking of it as a penance. Sue returns to Phillotson at Marygreen and marries him again, though she still finds him repugnant. Arabella comes to Jude, and by persistent scheming she gets him to marry her once more. They get along about as before, and though ill Jude goes to see Sue and they declare their love for each other. As a further penance, Sue then gives herself to Phillotson. Jude learns of this, and on the holiday the following year, while Arabella is out enjoying the festivities, Jude dies. Only Arabella and Mrs. Edlin are present to stand watch by his coffin. Critical Essays Symbolism and Irony in Jude the Obscure The symbolism in the novel helps to work out the theme. Such a minor symbol as the repeated allusion to Samson and Delilah reinforces the way Jude's emotional life undermines the realization of his ambitions. Two symbols of major importance are Christminster and the character of Little Father Time. They are useful to discuss, since the first is an instance of a successful symbol and the second an unsuccessful one. Jude's idea of Christminster permeates not only his thinking but the whole novel. From his first view of it on the horizon to his hearing the sounds of the holiday there coming in his window as he lies on his deathbed, Christminster represents to him all that is desirable in life. It is by this ideal that he measures everything. He encounters evidence in abundance that it is not in fact what he thinks it is in his imagination, but he will not take heed. It finally represents to him literally all that he has left in life. Of course, other characters as well are affected by Jude's idea of the place. It is a successful symbol because it is capable of representing what it is supposed to and it does not call attention to itself as a literary device. Little Father Time, however, is a different matter. The boy's appearance, his persistent gloom, his oracular tone, his inability ever to respond to anything as a child-all of these call attention to the fact that he is supposed to

represent something. And Hardy makes the child carry more meaning than he is naturally able to. He is fate, of course, but also blighted hopes, failure, change, etc. The use of irony is of course commonplace in fiction, and a number of effective instances of it in Hardy's novel are to be found. In some of the instances the reader but not the character recognizes the irony; in others, both the reader and the character are aware of it. An example of the first is Jude's occupational choice of ecclesiastical stonework in medieval Gothic style in a time when medievalism in architecture is dying out or the way Arabella alienates Jude by the deception she has used to get him to marry her the first time. An example of the second is Jude's dying in Christminster, the city that has symbolized all his hopes, or the way Arabella's calling on Jude in Aldbrickham in order to reawaken his interest in her helps bring about Sue's giving herself to him. Irony is particularly appropriate in a novel of tragic intent, in which events do not work out the way the characters expect. Certainly it is appropriate in a novel which has the kind of theme this one does. Struggling to break free of the old, the characters experience the old sufferings and failure nonetheless. Critical Essays Hardy on Religion In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, we gain insight into Hardy's view on religion as he uses his characters to make observations that may have been quite disconcerting to his Victorian readers. This is not to say that Hardy abandoned his views on religion, instead, he "became an agnostic, [and] he remained emotionally involved with the Church." Hardy's greatest dispute was with the dogma or beliefs of the church.

Hardy had once wanted to become a minister but abandoned that idea when he could no longer afford to attend the university. Robert Schweik, a Hardy critic, relates that Hardy became interested in religion on a personal level that the subject of infant baptism particularly affected him. Hardy could see no harm in baptizing an infant if doing so makes the family of the child feel better about their child's salvation. This position is made clear in the scenes with Tess and Sorrow.

The scene is played out in Chapter 14 when Tess baptizes Sorrow. She learns that her own ceremony is the same as if it were performed in church; however, on the subject of a proper Christian burial, the local vicar replies, "Ah that's another matter." In the true sense of charity, Hardy argues, Tess should have been allowed to bury Sorrow in a proper manner, not be relegated to the part of the cemetery that has unbaptized infants, drunks, and the damned. The burial is carried out under the cover of darkness, not during the daylight hours, to protect Tess and to shield her from the scorn of churchgoers. Hardy's point is that Sorrow's burial should have been treated as any other burial. The position of the church is too harsh, Hardy seems to argue, when Sorrow is christened in the proper manner, but is not given a proper Christian burial. Also, the positioning of pagan and Christian rituals makes for an interesting look at the dichotomy that exists in the smaller rural areas. Some rituals, now obscured by the passage of time, were assimilated into Christian ceremony. The May Dance, for instance, in Chapter 1, celebrated the end of the winter and the beginning of summer. Druids and other pagans of the area would have celebrated that date with a ceremony of sorts. Also, Tess, before she is literally sacrificed for the good of society, journeys to Stonehenge, the temple of monoliths used for sun worship and possibly human sacrifice. Tess says to Angel about the pantheon, "And you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen. So now I am at home." Also, Hardy recollects the earlier ancient Greek tragedies by invoking the name of Aeschylus, the principal writer of Greek tragic drama, to close his work, not biblical or modern sagas, as we would have imagined a nineteenth-century writer to do. Hardy quite possibly sees religion abandoning the people, with dogmas that do not mesh with a modern society. In Tess, with few exceptions, Hardy's portrayal of the "traditionally" religious people is not particularly complimentary. Take the casual remarks by Angel's brothers, Felix ("all Church") and Cuthbert ("all College"). They are quite involved in themselves, changing their beliefs and values to match the times. Both brothers are clerics without compassion, possibly in the same mold as the Vicar in Marlott. If religion is as shallow as Hardy predicts, then the sign painter and his art are the worst form of shallowness. The sign painter who wanders the countryside uses the simplest texts he can find to put on his religious signs. When Tess asks if he believes in the text about "sin not your own seeking,"

he replies, "I cannot split hairs on the burning query." Essentially, he is not educated enough to think of a reasonable answer, and his perspective on religion is limited. Hardy saw this in the common folk he knew and was loathe to think that their religious beliefs were so shallow that they did not understand the deeper meanings of the texts they had read. Also, the sign painter saves the hottest sign messages for rural districts, where the ordinary folk would be frightened and cowed into submission. These seem to be "religious views on a poker chip" philosophical entreaties to urge folks to turn to the Bible for aid. But these signs seem to miss the deeper meanings of the scriptures, which Tess seems to understand, not just the superficial meanings espoused by others. Likewise, Alec is the worst kind of convert, a sinner who renounces his former ways but becomes a sinner again at the slightest hint of temptation. The signs put up by the sign painter and Alec's conversion all point to a faith that is fleeting at best. However, not all clergy are poor representations of religion, nor all believers false. Tess, for example, has an uncomplicated religion, a simpler and deeper understanding than her education would allow. She is as powerful as any clergyman when she baptizes Sorrow, but realistic when she realizes that she must pay for her sins when confronted by the police. Similarly, Angel's father, Reverend Clare is a good man, with good intentions, and a good message. He is part of the evangelical movement who practices what he preaches. He is described as Paulist or Pauliad, from Paul of Tarsus, who believed that salvation came through grace and belief, which came through emotional responses rather than intellectual ones. Thus we see Hardy from two separate perspectives, one who uses biblical allusion with the knowledge of a believer, but the skepticism of an outsider. About Tess of the d'Urbervilles Introduction Hardy began Tess of the d'Urbervilles in 188889 and considered such names as Love, Cis/Cissy, and Sue, for the title character. Eventually, he decided on Tess. Hardy had been working on this manuscript with the intention of submitting it for serial publication, in which only a few chapters would be released at a time; depending on the material's reception and the publisher's willingness, these chapters would then later be combined in book form. Hardy contracted with W. F. Tillotson & Son in 1887 for a serialized story to be delivered in four installments between 1887 and June 30, 1889.

Hardy also negotiated with Harper's Bazaar in America for the story at about the same time. Tillotson & Son realized that it had a racy novel on its hands when editors became aware of the serial's content. The publishers suggested revisions of certain scenes and complete deletions of others, but Hardy refused, and the two parted ways amicably, leaving the book unpublished. Fortunately, Hardy had an offer to publish the serial in the Graphic (London) Illustrated Weekly Newspaper. After much revision, the novel appeared as a serial on July 4, 1891, in England (in the Graphic and the Nottinghamshire Guardian and Midlands Counties Advertiser) and Australia (the Sydney Mail). It appeared on July 18 in America in Harper's Bazaar. After a successful reception as a serial, Tess of the d'Urbervilles was published in book form and consisted of three volumes. In late 1892, the entire set was combined into one volume and sold well. By 1900, Hardy authorized a paperback version of the novel, which sold 300,000 editions in England in one year. Hardy continually tinkered with the subsequent editions, and he worked on revisions up until the time of his death in 1928. Early Reviews Although the first reviews of the novel were generally good, later critics charged that the book had some serious defects. The Saturday Review called the novel "an unpleasant novel told in a very unpleasant way." Another critic, Mowbray Morris, published the letter sent to Hardy rejecting the serial when it was proposed to Macmillan's Magazine, a literary magazine whose contributors included in addition to Hardy Tennyson, Herbert Coleridge (grandson of S.T. Coleridge), Bret Harte, and Mowbray Morris. Harper's Weekly called Tess "artificial" and "not in the reality of any sane world we recognize." Novelist Henry James called Tess "chock-full of faults and falsities and yet [possessed of] a singular beauty and charm." Others thought the novel "not to their personal tastes in some respects, but justly appreciated its greatness in others." The Atlantic Monthly called Tess "Hardy's best novel yet." It seems, however, that Hardy overlooked the positive reviews, and after reading Morris' review, Hardy wrote, "Well, if this sort of thing continues no more novel-writing for me." It was the hint of a vow that Hardy would

fulfill, only a few years later. He would write only one more novel, Jude the Obscure. Still, Tess continued to sell well in Hardy's time and has spawned a great wealth of literary criticism that continues even today. The negative critics have been silenced, and Tess continues to be read and reread as a classic of English literature. Historical Context The Victorian Era when Hardy lived was a time of great change. Queen Victoria ruled England from1837 until her death in 1901. During her 63-year reign, England became the most powerful and wealthiest country in the world through its colonial acquisition and by harnessing the power of the Industrial Revolution. The population in England doubled during Victoria's reign, and the economy of the country changed from agriculture-based to industry-based. More people were enfranchised (that is, given the right to vote) and, through this, gained influence in government. The Parliament passed labor laws that improved labor conditions, established universal schooling for all children, and reformed the civil service system. Britain ended restrictions on foreign trade, opening the way for the island to become a source for both raw materials and finished goods to an ever-increasing international market. Victoria, interested in the welfare of her people, worked hard to pass meaningful reforms, and she earned the respect of her subjects. Her prime ministers were her greatest assets, and with them, Queen Victoria decreased the powers of the monarchy to empower the members of the prime minister's cabinet. As a result, the British monarchy has been able to endure, unlike the monarchies in most other countries. The changes that occurred during the Victorian era affected the lives of every person living in England in both great and small ways. As England quickly moved from an agriculture-based society to one that would produce many of the world's goods, factories replaced individual workshops, and people moved from small towns to large cities in search of work. Mobility and the transport of goods were increased with the invention of steamships and the development of a railway system. The balance of traditional class distinctions shifted as more people prospered, amassing wealth and power that had been unthinkable in the years prior to this era. These tumultuous

changes resulted in an examination of the traditional ways of thinking and acting, and the foundations of English society family, religion, class divisions, and so on came under increasing scrutiny. One area that was particularly affected by the changes in England was religion. The Church of England was traditionally conservative and offered a literal interpretation of the Bible. During the Victorian period, however, as people began to see the church as an agent for social change as well as an agent for personal salvation, the question became how and even whether the church should best fulfill these missions. The result was a schism in the church that fostered three movements: the High Church movement, the Middle Church movement, and the Low Church movement. The High Church movement was designed to align the Church of England with the "Catholic" side of Anglicanism. The thinking here was that traditional practices were the standard by which faith could be expressed and that supreme authority resided in the Church. The Middle Church movement cared less for tradition and believed that faith could be expressed in various ways, including through social action. The Low Church Movement believed that evangelicals were a force that could reform the church from within and without. Individual and biblical bases of faith were hallmarks of this movement. Evangelicals tackled serious issues of the day: housing and welfare of the poor, as well as social reform. They also believed in spreading the gospel around the world by any means necessary. The growing reliance on science to explain the nature of man and his relationship with his world opened the doors for further examination of traditionally held beliefs. The publication of Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), which suggested that species evolved from common ancestors that could be found through scientific research, challenged the belief that God created each species individually and separately from every other species. The agnostic movement, which relied on scientific evidence and reason to find universal truths and which held that the existence of God could not be empirically proven, took hold and gained momentum. From these ideological splits, religious liberals and conservatives battled over fundamental questions of faith and religious practice. In Hardy's work, we can see that this debate was one that he entered into. In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Hardy's protagonist finds herself in a world where she

questions religion, questions faith, looks for meaning in life, and searches for the truths that mankind has sought for centuries. Literary Context The body of Victorian literature is tremendous and would be difficult to categorize with only a few authors. Hardy's contemporaries included the likes of Charles Dickens, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, E.M. Forester, and Joseph Conrad. Each contributed his or her work to the body of general human knowledge and, to one degree or another, considered the issues that had become a part of the English "discussion." Dickens criticized the treatment of the poor and children, the courts, and the clergy in Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Bleak House. William Thackeray challenged Victorian society at all levels in Vanity Fair. The Bront sisters Emily, Charlotte, and Anne wove romantic elements with tragic heroines and heroes in Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Agnes Grey. Matthew Arnold took the discussion of worldly happiness versus religious faith in his poems "The Scholar Gypsy" and "Dover Beach." Tennyson's In Memoriam, an epic poem on the loss of dear friends, discusses intellectual and religious issues of the day. Conrad wrote on the psychology of guilt, heroism, and honor in his novels Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness. Tess of the d'Urbervilles is one of Hardy's Wessex novels, so called because the action in each story takes place in the Wessex region. Other of the Wessex novels include The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) and Jude the Obscure (1895). In each, the main characters are dealt a cruel fate that they must overcome or be crushed by. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Michael Henchard, a respected man, faces a spiritual and physical deterioration that, in the end, destroys him. The main character in Jude, Jude Fawley, suffers from a desperate misery of body and mind and dies, like Tess in Tess of the d'Urbervilles, a victim of fate. The Return of the Native By Thomas Hardy Critical Essays Symbolism in The Return of the Native Hardy uses a number of symbols in the novel: Egdon Heath, Rainbarrow, the moon, Paris, gambling, physical impairment (eyesight), a storm, water are those singled out for comment. Many of these are aspects of the setting. Like any symbol, these are both facts and representatives of certain meanings or

significance. Symbols are appropriate to a work of fiction if they can be both at the same time. They are successful if they enable an author to convey meaning without forcing it. Most of the above symbols are appropriate and successful; those which are not are connected with the melodramatic scenes at the end of Book Fifth. Symbols are useful guidelines that can help to demonstrate an author's theme. The Return of the Native By Thomas Hardy Book Summary Across Egdon Heath (a "vast tract of unenclosed wild . . . a somber, windswept stretch of brown hills and valleys, virtually treeless, covered in briars and thorn bushes"), an older man makes his way. Soon he encounters a horse-drawn van, being led by Diggory Venn, a reddleman (seller of a reddish powdery dye used by sheep farmers to identify their flock). In the van is a young woman whose identity Venn rudely conceals from the elderly hiker. As he continues walking alongside the van, the reddleman notices the figure of a woman, standing atop Rainbarrow, the largest of the many Celtic burial mounds in the area, profiled against the sky, "like an organic part of the entire motionless structure," and then, replacing her, other figures. These are heath folk (locals, living near the heath) come to start a Fifth-ofNovember bonfire, a local custom. The night sky is lit by a number of these bonfires. The young woman traveling in Diggory Venn's horse cart is Thomasin Yeobright, who was to have married Damon Wildeve that day. Mrs. Yeobright takes Thomasin with her to see Wildeve at the inn he operates in order to demand an explanation of his failure to marry her. When their bonfire has burned out, the locals come to serenade Thomasin and Wildeve, thinking them to be newly married and wanting to celebrate. When Wildeve is able to get rid of them he starts off to see Eustacia Vye, the mysterious figure Venn saw earlier, standing on Rainbarrow. Eustacia watches for Wildeve on Rainbarrow, returning now and then to check on the signal fire she has had built before her grandfather's house. (Captain Vye is the chance acquaintance of Venn's). Wildeve was once Eustacia's lover, but she has not seen him since his interest in Thomasin. Eventually, Wildeve does finally arrive. Venn accidentally learns of the meeting between Eustacia and Wildeve. A longtime admirer and once rejected suitor of Thomasin, Venn thinks he can

score points with her. He now resolves to help her and purposely overhears the conversation between Eustacia and Wildeve the next time they meet on Rainbarrow. Venn then calls on Eustacia to get her to help Thomasin, finally telling her he knows about her meetings with Wildeve. Venn also informs Mrs. Yeobright he would like to marry her niece. Though he is rejected, the aunt uses him as a means to put pressure on Wildeve. Wildeve goes immediately to Eustacia to convince her to leave with him, but she will not answer right away. The news of the arrival for the Christmas holidays of Mrs. Yeobright's son, Clym, is widely talked about on the heath, including Captain Vye's house, where Eustacia also hears about his impending visit. Mrs. Yeobright and Thomasin make preparations for Clym's arrival. After getting a glimpse of him, Eustacia is fascinated by him. She arranges to substitute for one of the boys in the traditional Christmas mumming (a play or pageant in which the actors use gestures, masks, props, and elaborate makeup, but do not have spoken lines), the first performance of which is at a party Mrs. Yeobright is giving. During the performance at the party, Eustacia succeeds in meeting Clym while she is in costume. Now that her interest in Wildeve has paled, Eustacia makes clear to Venn that she would like to see Wildeve married to Thomasin. They do marry, with Eustacia serving as witness. Mrs. Yeobright, who has once opposed the marriage, does not attend; and Clym, who has been away from home, finds out about the marriage after it has taken place. Giving up his business career in Paris, Clym has returned to Egdon Heath to set up as a schoolteacher to those who can't afford existing schools. Mrs. Yeobright disapproves, thinking Clym's career goals do not show enough ambition. Clym meets Eustacia, in her own person this time, and is strongly attracted to her, an attraction that Mrs. Yeobright argues against. Clym sees Eustacia regularly, usually on the heath, for several months and then asks her to marry him. She says yes, though she hopes he will finally give up his plans and take her to Paris. When Mrs. Yeobright and Clym quarrel over his love of Eustacia and he feels forced to leave his mother's house, he decides he and Eustacia should marry right away and live for a time on the heath. Clym finds a cottage and moves from home, leaving his mother disconsolate and bitter. Wildeve's interest in Eustacia revives when he hears of her approaching marriage.

On the occasion of their marriage, Mrs. Yeobright decides to send a gift of money. Her son, Clym, is marrying Eustacia against her wishes, and she hopes that, by offering this gift, she and her son can repair their relationship. The other half of the money is to go to her niece, Thomasin, who has recently married Damon Wildeve, Eustacia's former lover. Unfortunately, Mrs. Yeobright selects as her messenger the inept Christian Cantle, the village simpleton. Cantle loses the money gambling with Wildeve, who wants revenge on his wife's aunt for not trusting him with the money. Venn, protecting Thomasin, wins it back from Wildeve, but not understanding that part of it should go to Clym, Venn he delivers it all to Thomasin. Eustacia and Clym for a time live a secluded life. When Mrs. Yeobright receives no response from Clym about the money, she calls on Eustacia, and they quarrel bitterly. Clym, hurrying his study to be a teacher so as to pacify the impatient Eustacia, develops severe eye trouble and is forced to suspend his work. To his wife's dismay, he takes up furze cutting (furze is a low, prickly shrub) as a way of making a little money and getting exercise. To Eustacia, this is a far cry from what she yearns for the gay life of the great world, especially as represented by Paris and since Clym had business and connections in Paris, Eustacia saw him as a way out of her constrained life on the heath. To compensate, she goes to a gipsying (a dance) and unexpectedly encounters Wildeve and dances with him. Venn sees them together and attempts to discourage Wildeve's loitering around Clym's house at night. Persuaded by Venn to forget her pride and call on her son, Mrs. Yeobright starts the long walk to his house on a hot August day. She sees Wildeve admitted by Eustacia before she can get there; when she knocks on the door, Clym's wife looks out the window but doesn't answer. The older woman tries to walk back home, stops in exhaustion, and is bitten by an adder. She is later discovered by Clym, who has set off for her house to attempt a reconciliation, but even medical attention cannot save her and she dies. Clym blames himself for her death. Eustacia is nearby when Mrs. Yeobright dies but doesn't make an appearance; she has accidentally encountered Wildeve, who has lately come into an inheritance. Clym for some time is ill and irrational because of his mother's death. His constant blaming of himself exhausts Eustacia, and she tries to find consolation in Wildeve. Once back to normal again, Clym sets out to discover what his mother was doing on the heath. From Mrs. Yeobright's

handyman, Cantle, from Venn, and a young boy who came across his mother as she tried to get home that day, Clym learns what happened. He accuses Eustacia of cruelty to his mother. When Clym adds the charge of deception of himself as a husband, the relationship between him and Eustacia is effectively over. She leaves his house to return to Captain Vye's. At her grandfather's, Eustacia doesn't know how to occupy herself and once even thinks of suicide. A bonfire is lit for her when the Fifth of November comes, an inadvertent signal to Wildeve, who offers to help Eustacia get away from the heath to Paris. On Thomasin's advice, Clym, now moved back to his mother's house, writes to ask his wife to return to him. On the evening of the sixth of November, Eustacia signals to Wildeve that she wants to go, by chance not getting Clym's letter before she leaves the house. Thomasin, has suspicions about Wildeve. She and Captain Vye, who finds out Eustacia has left the house very late at night, come to ask Clym's help. Thomasin tries to get back home, finally with Venn's assistance. While Wildeve waits with a horse cart for Eustacia, and Clym searches for his wife, Eustacia on this dark, stormy night throws herself in a stream near a weir. Both Wildeve and Clym try to rescue her, but it is Venn who pulls out both men as well as Eustacia. Of the three, only Clym survives. After her husband's death, Thomasin moves into the family home with Clym. Venn, having given up the reddle trade, calls on her, and they become interested in each other. However, Clym thinks he ought to ask his cousin to marry him since his mother wished it. But Thomasin and Venn decide to marry and do. Clym is last seen on top of Rainbarrow, performing as an itinerant preacher of moral lectures. The Return of the Native By Thomas Hardy Critical Essays Irony in The Return of the Native Irony is a literary device in which the difference between intention and performance is shown. It is an effect that figures heavily in Hardy's novel. The theme itself contains irony, because man can never know just what sort of universe he lives in. If a man is convinced, for example, that the gods are indifferent to his aspirations and his life, he may be wrong. Eustacia's despair may well be caused by a mistaken view of what life is like. As a consequence, her view of things becomes one of the causes for her despair, though she looks upon it rather as a symptom. To take an extreme case,

Hardy himself may have been quite wrong in his way of looking at life. Indeed, any view of humanity in relation to the universe is susceptible of irony. Critical Essays Theme of The Return of the Native In this novel, Hardy embodies the idea that we live in an indifferent universe. He also implies that the universe can be hostile, but he does not use this novel as a vehicle to remind us that "it's a jungle out there." Critics usually refer to Hardy's themes as fatalistic a view of life that shows human actions being controlled by an impersonal force, perhaps called Destiny or Fate, which is independent of both humanity and its gods. The indifference of the universe, therefore, really describes what we see as we look about us or, perhaps, all that we can find when we are unable any longer to believe in the gods we created. If it is said that we are created in God's image, it may also be argued that we create gods in our own images. The dilemma implied here is, of course, as old as humanity and perpetually without final answer, though historically there have been many attempted answers. Chance and coincidence are two ways in which this seeming indifference expresses itself in our lives. When we say an event has taken place by chance or coincidence, we are simply expressing our own view of the matter; it is simply all we are able to see at the moment. For Hardy, chance or coincidence is used as a way of showing his theme on the level of events or plot. Adam Bede By George Eliot Book Summary Adam Bede is a young workman of twenty-six in the town of Hayslope in Loamshire. He is the foreman of a carpentry shop where his brother, Seth, also works. The novel opens in the workshop with an argument among the men about religion. We learn that Dinah Morris, a Methodist preacher with whom Seth is in love, will speak in the village that evening. Seth goes to the prayer meeting and afterwards proposes to Dinah, who refuses him. Meanwhile, Adam has gone home and found out from his mother, Lisbeth, that his father, Thias, has gone off drinking instead of finishing a coffin he had contracted for. Working all night, Adam finishes the coffin, and he and Seth deliver it in the morning. On their way home, they find the drowned body of their father in a brook.

Joshua Rann, the parish clerk, informs Mr. Irwine, the local Anglican clergyman, that the Methodists are stirring up dissension in Hayslope. Mr. Irwine and Arthur Donnithorne, grandson and heir of the local landowner, ride over to see Dinah at the Hall Farm, a place tenanted by the Poysers, Dinah's uncle and aunt. Mr. Irwine speaks to Dinah and is impressed by her religious sincerity. Meanwhile, Arthur flirts with another of the Poysers' nieces, Hetty Sorrel, and she is greatly flattered by his attentions. Mr. Irwine informs Dinah of Thias Bede's death, and she goes to the Bedes' cottage and comforts Lisbeth. Arthur learns on the same occasion that Hetty will be at the Chase, his manor, in two days' time, and he places himself so as to meet her in a grove on the grounds. After talking with her, he is ashamed of himself for being attracted to a mere farm girl, but he cannot break the spell and later that day intercepts her again in the same grove and kisses her. Ashamed of his behavior once more, he decides to tell his troubles to Mr. Irwine, hoping that confession will cure his passion. But when he speaks to the clergyman at Broxton parsonage the following morning, he loses his nerve and says nothing about Hetty. Meanwhile, Dinah has encouraged Hetty to come to her if she ever needs help, but Hetty, a thoughtless little thing who feels that no trouble will ever come to her, repulses the offer. Dinah leaves for her home in Snowfield, Stonyshire, the next day. Thias Bede is buried, and Adam reflects that now he can begin to look forward to marriage; he is in love with Hetty. He goes to the Hall Farm and finds that Hetty seems more friendly towards him than in the past; he doesn't realize that her thoughts are all of Arthur, and his hopes rise. While visiting Bartle Massey, the local schoolmaster, that evening, he learns that the keeper of the Chase woods has had a stroke and that the job may be offered to him. Adam's marriage prospects look bright indeed, both from a financial and an emotional viewpoint. Arthur's twenty-first birthday arrives, and all the tenants of the estate gather for a grand celebration. There is a round of toasts at dinnertime and everyone wishes the popular Arthur well. Adam is offered the job as keeper of the woods and he accepts it. There are games in which the townspeople compete in the afternoon and a dance in the evening. At the dance, Adam discovers by accident that Hetty is wearing a locket which looks like a lover's token, but he dismisses the thought that she is interested in another

man. The locket, of course, is a gift from Arthur; he and Hetty are carrying on a secret affair. About three weeks later, Adam happens to be passing through the grove on the Chase grounds when he finds Arthur and Hetty in an embrace. He is furious, starts a fight with Arthur, and knocks him out. When Arthur revives, Adam forces him to promise to write a note to Hetty breaking off the relationship. After much soul-searching, Arthur composes the note and gives it to Adam to deliver. He then leaves to join his regiment in the south of England. Adam delivers the note, trying to soften the blow to Hetty as much as possible. Before she reads the letter, Hetty refuses to believe that Arthur wants to break off the relationship; she is convinced that Arthur will marry her. After she reads it, she is in despair. She wants to leave home and go into service as a maid, but the Poysers won't let her. Finally she begins to feel that marrying Adam wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. Meanwhile, Dinah has written a friendly letter to Seth from Snowfield, and Mrs. Poyser has verbally routed Squire Donnithorne, Arthur's grandfather, who was bent on making a sharp deal with respect to the Poyser's farm. When Adam notices that Hetty's friendly attitude toward him does not change, he concludes that there had really been nothing serious between Arthur and her. He proposes to her, she accepts, and the wedding is set for the following spring. Adam is deliriously happy and spends the next three months making preparations. Hetty, meanwhile, has fits of depression and contemplates suicide; she is pregnant by Arthur. She decides to run away and go to Arthur; telling the Poysers that she is going to visit Dinah in Snowfield for a week or two, she sets out. After traveling for seven days, Hetty arrives sick, exhausted, and penniless, at Windsor. Here she is befriended by an innkeeper and his wife who inform her that Arthur's regiment has left for Ireland. Hetty faints in despair, but the next day her courage revives, she gets some money from the innkeeper in exchange for the jewelry Arthur had given her, and she heads back north, intending to go to Dinah in Snowfield. After five days of traveling, though, her spirits give out, and she leaves her coach and wanders out into the open fields. She spends part of a night by a pond but can't summon the courage to kill herself and so resumes her journey on foot towards Stonyshire. When Hetty does not return in the expected time, Adam decides to go to Snowfield and bring her back. He discovers, of course, that she has never been there, and he tries to trace her but to no avail. Realizing that she has probably gone

to Arthur, he resolves to go to Ireland. He stops at the parsonage to tell Mr. Irwine his plans and is shocked to learn that Hetty is in prison in Stoniton for the murder of her baby. He and Mr. Irwine go to Stoniton; Mr. Irwine returns the next day to break the bad news to the Poysers, while Adam rents a room and stays. Meanwhile, Arthur's grandfather has died and Arthur has set out for home from Ireland. As the trial begins, Adam sits in his room in despair. Mr. Irwine and Bartle Massey (who has come to stay with Adam) bring news of how the trial is progressing; Hetty's guilt seems certain, though Adam refuses to believe it. Finally he goes to the courtroom himself. Two witnesses give evidence against Hetty, the jury returns the verdict of guilty, and the judge pronounces the death sentence. Meanwhile, Arthur has returned home, found a note from Mr. Irwine explaining the situation, and left for Stoniton. On the evening after the trial, Dinah comes to the prison and gains admittance; she has been away and has just returned to the area. She gets Hetty to confess her guilt, which the girl had refused to do before, and induces her to pray. Dinah then goes and asks Adam to come and see Hetty before she dies. He comes the following morning, the day of the execution, and gives Hetty the forgiveness she asks for. Then Hetty is taken away to the place of execution. But at the last instant, Arthur comes riding up with a reprieve; Hetty's sentence has been commuted to "transportation" (exile). The next day, Adam and Arthur meet by chance in the grove where they had fought. Arthur is repentant and plans on going off to the wars. He asks Adam's forgiveness, and Adam, after a short struggle with his pride, agrees to shake hands. Eighteen months later, Adam visits the Hall Farm to ask Dinah, who is visiting her relatives again, to come and comfort his ailing mother. Dinah goes back to the cottage with him and stays overnight to help Lisbeth. She blushes when Adam speaks to her. After she leaves, Lisbeth tells Adam that Dinah loves him; Adam is taken by surprise, but when he thinks about it he realizes that he loves her too. That afternoon he goes to the Hall Farm and proposes; Dinah wants to say yes, but her sense of duty stops her. She says she will return to her work among the poor and think about it. Adam reluctantly agrees and Dinah leaves. It is harvest time at the farm, and the harvest supper takes place with great gaiety.

After a month or so, Adam becomes anxious to know Dinah's decision and goes to Snowfield. He meets her atop a hill and she accepts his proposal. After another month has passed, they are married amid great rejoicing. Some years later, Dinah and Seth are at home with Dinah's two children. Adam comes home; he has been to see Arthur, who has been away all this time and has returned a changed man. We learn that Hetty is dead, and then the novel ends on a note of domestic contentment. Adam Bede By George Eliot Critical Essays The "Dear Reader" Technique in Adam Bede "With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord 1799." The first paragraph of Adam Bede in itself is enough to mark the novel as a pre-modern-century product. With few exceptions, modern authors accept Henry James' notion that a novel should create a world unto itself; a novelist should not take the pose of someone "telling a story" to a group of listeners but should simply present a self-contained, complete imitation of reality and let it stand on its own merits. In Eliot's time, the "dear reader" technique was widely used. The method derives from the earlier popular conception that fiction, since it was literally "untrue," was a base deception and morally unhealthy. Eighteenth-century authors, especially Defoe, took pains to insist that their novels were really accounts of true happenings, and, although the nineteenth century gradually came to accept fiction as fiction, the custom of speaking directly to the reader, as the editor of a journal or the author of a set of memoirs would do, persisted. Probably the most celebrated example of the use of the technique is Thackeray's Vanity Fair, where the author refers to his characters as "puppets" and admits almost shyly that he created an artificial world. The impulse to separate truth from fiction was still alive; it took the novel about another forty years to take its place as a serious art form which did not apologize for its own existence.

The technique, then, is first of all a convention. Eliot pretends throughout that Adam Bede is a true story. She takes the pose of one who is merely recording events which she has heard recounted. She says in Chapter 17, for example: "But I gathered from Adam Bede, to whom I talked of these matters in his old age," and goes on to report a conversation which had supposedly taken place years after the events presented in the novel were things of the past. This, at one and the same time, has the effect of both destroying and supporting the illusion of reality which the novel as a whole creates. It destroys that illusion because the events described no longer seem immediate and present; it supports it by making us believe that we are reading an extremely detailed history of real people and things. Thus the novel hangs rather uncomfortably in the balance between fiction and reality; we know the events described are not real, but we are asked to believe that they are. The modern novelist does this too, but in a different way; he asks us to freely become absorbed in his fictional world rather than insisting that we assimilate the fictional world into the real one. The "dear reader" technique also serves some practical functions. Because the author pretends to be "outside" her own story, she is free to comment in her own voice upon the characters and events she creates. A very large part of the character analysis in Adam Bede is handled from this viewpoint; in Chapter 5, for instance, we find the following: "On the other hand, I must plead, for I have an affectionate partiality towards the Rector's memory, that he was not vindictive." Eliot also uses the method to ask for the reader's sympathy and understanding, to guide his reactions to her story. In Chapter 3, she begs us to use our historical imaginations to visualize what Methodism was like in 1799, and, in Chapter 17, she asks us to appreciate her realistic approach. These two functions work hand in band. Eliot is very careful to make us see the point of her story, and so she constantly analyzes the people and issues involved in it with an eye to controlling our intellectual and emotional reactions to them. This somewhat insecure way of proceeding indicates once again that Eliot was self-consciously writing a revolutionary novel; afraid that her readers won't know what to think of her unusual plot, she tells them plainly what to think. Adam Bede By George Eliot Critical Essays Local Color and Comic Relief in Adam Bede

Local color, as a literary term, refers to depictions of life and character in a particular locality. The customs of the people, their speech, their peculiar way of looking at things is presented to the reader, often in a slightly sentimentalized or nostalgic form. Dickens' Mr. Micawber and the Artful Dodger are local figures, and their environments are local color settings. Bret Harte is probably the best-known American practitioner of the genre. Comic relief is a familiar term which needs little discussion. An author will seek to relieve the intensity of a serious plot line by inserting comic characters or situations; these entertaining diversions help keep the reader's interest lively and balance out the fictional picture of our half-tragic, halfcomic world. Probably the most famous example of the use of comic relief in English literature is the knocking at the gate in Macbeth, where the sight of the drunken porter relaxes the audience after the murder of Duncan. Eliot uses both these devices in Adam Bede. In a sense, most of the novel is local color; the settings and the speech of the characters obviously belong to a specific time and place. But certain characters function almost entirely as local color figures: Wiry Ben, for example, or Chad's Bess, or Mr. Craig. These people are part of the novel's background; they provide a concrete milieu in which the central action of the story takes place. Mr. Poyser is a typical (though unusually skilled) Warwickshire farmer; Wiry Ben exemplifies the typical attitudes of the Warwickshire town laborer of his day. Eliot gives a lot of attention to the habits and customs of the local people. Most of Chapters 6 and 18, for example, describe what ordinary people did and said on ordinary days in the Warwickshire countryside in 1800. The operation of the Hall Farm and the description of Sunday morning churchgoing are presented not because they are relevant to the novel's conflict but because they help make up the picture of a realistic, functioning, physical world. Parts of Book III (especially Chapter 25 on the games at Arthur's birthday party) show how people celebrated an important event; Chapter 53 describes the local ritual of the harvest supper. The sections of the novel which concentrate on developing local color serve other purposes as well. Book III, as noted in the commentaries, is the calm before the storm; Eliot builds up suspense by talking of minor matters while delaying the explosion of the inevitable conflict. The long descriptions in Chapter 18 put Thias Bede's death in context; if treated as anything other

than a "typical" event, his funeral would assume too much importance in the story, thus diverting attention from Adam's real soul-crisis at Hetty's trial. And Chapter 53 wrings the last bit of suspense from the plot by "marking time" while Dinah thinks over Adam's proposal. They also serve, of course, to provide comic relief, Eliot normally places her local color descriptions so as to perform this secondary function as well. It is no accident that the relatively light-hearted Book III comes after the lines of conflict in the novel have been somewhat grimly drawn and before Adam's fight with Arthur, or that Chapter 32, in which Mrs. Poyser routs Squire Donnithorne, interrupts the development of Hetty's tragedy. Thus local color and comic relief work hand in hand in Adam Bede. Eliot, determined to write a realistic novel about common, everyday people, delves into her memories of her Warwickshire childhood and creates a specific, concrete world peopled with generally plausible figures. She projects it back in time past the date of her own birth and perhaps sentimentalizes it a little; one wonders whether rural folk in 1800 were really as charming as she presents them. And, though she is writing a very serious book, Eliot does not forget (as she tended to do in later works) that one function of the novelist is to entertain. So she provides us with something to laugh at with her Bartle Massey and Wiry Ben and hits a nostalgic note with the harvest supper. But most of all, as local color and comic relief, she gives us the inimitable Mrs. Poyser. Perhaps no tenant's wife in 1800 would really tell her aristocratic landlord "you've got Old Harry to your friend." But then again perhaps she would, and it is both educational and amusing to hear Mrs. Poyser "have her say out." Adam Bede By George Eliot Critical Essays The Symbolic World of Adam Bede George Eliot communicates the meaning of her novel partially by employing symbolism in the description of the physical world in which her characters live. These patterns point up contrasts and support, by an appeal to the visual imagination, some of the book's central ideas. It is obvious that the names of the two counties mentioned in the novel and the names of the two towns where principal characters live are significant. Snowfield, Dinah's home town, is located in Stonyshire; as the names indicate, this is a bleak, forbidding region in which people eke out a poor

living on the rocky hills or else work in a factory. Hayslope in Loamshire, on the other hand, is a pleasant spot where the farmers are prosperous and the workers comfortable; there are no factories, but only small neighborhood businesses like Jonathan Burge's workshop. The "world" of the novel thus divides into light and dark, or hopeful and gloomy areas. Taking this world to represent life, we can see that Eliot is dividing experience into the pleasant and the unpleasant giving us symbols for the "light" and "dark" sides of life. Dinah lives in Stonyshire; she is familiar with the darker side of life, accepts human suffering as necessary and inevitable, and knows how to deal with it. Adam, Arthur and Hetty, on the other hand, take a much more optimistic view of things and must learn what Dinah already knows. The crisis of the novel takes place in Stonyshire (in a town called Stoniton, as a matter of fact) and it is here that the three Loamshire people discover the meaning of "irremediable evil." This division is supported by another one that between controlled and uncontrolled human actions. We noted in the commentaries that the seduction, the fight between Adam and Arthur, and Hetty's abandonment of her child all take place in the woods. These actions, prompted by "natural" urges rather than by a "civilized" use of intellect and will, form one of the two primary causes of suffering in the novel. The other cause is that part of reality which is beyond man's control. This area of human experience is symbolized by the tapping at the door in Chapter 4 which, though a superstition, turns out to be a valid portent of death, by the force of blind circumstances, and by God. Religion in George Eliot's novels seems to mean a respectful attitude towards the great unknown. Dinah, the completely religious woman, realistically recognizes the existence of evil and is patient and humble. Adam, who is religious in a naturalistic way, and Arthur and Hetty, who are not religious at all, have pride in them and must learn humility through experience. Thus the world of the novel is set up to show that man must recognize that life has its less pleasant side and that suffering derives from the nature of things and from a lack of self-control. Like Dinah and Mr. Irwine, he must act upon this knowledge, avoiding evil whenever possible, accepting and dealing with it when it cannot he avoided. The Mill on the Floss By George Eliot Book Summary

Mr. Tulliver has decided to remove Tom from the academy where he presently studies and send him to a school where he can learn things that will raise him in the world. Mr. Tulliver has indefinite ideas on education, and he seeks advice from an acquaintance, Mr. Riley, whom he judges to be knowledgeable. Mr. Riley, although he has no definite opinions on the subject, recommends Rev. Stelling, the son-in-law of a business acquaintance, as a tutor. Maggie eagerly awaits Tom's arrival. He comes with gifts for her, but when he finds that his rabbits have died because she neglected them, he repulses her. She retires heartbroken to the attic until Mr. Tulliver forces Tom to coax her down to tea. Tom and Maggie's aunts and uncles the Gleggs, Deanes, and Pullets gather to discuss the boy's education, but Mr. Tulliver has already made up his mind. One result of his hasty decision is a violent quarrel with Mrs. Glegg, to whom he owes five hundred pounds. Tulliver fears that she will call her money in, and he determines to head off that possibility by paying it back at once. His sister's husband, Mr. Moss, has borrowed three hundred pounds from him, and Tulliver rides to see them to ask payment of the debt. But pity for that family's poverty overcomes him, and he lets the debt stand. Meanwhile, Tom and Maggie with their cousin Lucy and their mother have gone to visit the Pullets. Tom becomes angry when Maggie upsets his cowslip wine and punishes her by paying no attention to her when he takes Lucy off to the pond. Maggie takes revenge by pushing Lucy into the mud. When Tom goes in to tell on her, Maggie runs off to live with the gypsies and be their queen. She finds some gypsies, but they are not what she expects, and she is very frightened before they return her to her father. Mr. and Mrs. Glegg have been discussing the proposition of calling in her money from Mr. Tulliver. She is at last convinced that it will earn more where it is, and so she is receptive to Mrs. Pullet's suggestion (prompted by Mrs. Tulliver) that it would be best left alone. However, Mrs. Tulliver makes the mistake of telling her husband that Mrs. Pullet has interceded with Mrs. Glegg. He is so angry that he writes to Mrs. Glegg that he will pay in the money at once. To do this he finds it necessary to borrow five hundred pounds from a client of Lawyer Wakem.

Tom turns out to be the only pupil of Rev. Stelling, and he receives the full benefit of an education he does not want and cannot understand, an education consisting chiefly of Latin grammar and geometry. When he goes home at Christmas he learns that his father is about to go to law over water rights against a new neighbor, Mr. Pivart, a client of Wakem. He also learns that Philip Wakem will be his school-fellow after the holiday. On his return to school Tom quickly decides that Wakem is an inconsiderable person, a hunchback who is touchy about his deformity. However, he admires Philip's ability to draw and to tell stories of legendary heroes. During this term Maggie comes to visit Tom and grows friendly with Philip, whose cleverness she admires. Her presence, aided by an injury to Tom's foot, brings about a brief friendship between the two boys, but when Maggie leaves they quickly grow apart again. It is two-and-a-half years later that Maggie comes to fetch Tom home with the news that their father has lost all his property in the lawsuit with Pivart. Mr. Tulliver has found that the mortgage on his property (taken out to repay Mrs. Glegg) has passed to Wakem. That news has caused him to fall insensible. His property is all to be sold, including Mrs. Tulliver's cherished possessions. The relatives agree to buy in a few things which the Tulliver's need. There is some thought that Mr. Deane's company might buy the mill and retain Mr. Tulliver as manager. Unfortunately, Mrs. Tulliver tries to insure this by smoothing things with Wakem. Her plan goes wrong as Wakem keeps the mill for himself and takes Mr. Tulliver on as a hireling. Tom successfully applies to Mr. Deane for a position with Guest and Company, but his father requires him to swear on the family Bible that he will take vengeance on Wakem. Maggie's life falls into a round of housework and sewing. This is broken by a visit from Bob Jakin, who has become a packman. Bob brings her a gift of books. One of these turns out to be by Thomas a Kempis, and this book leads her to a life of renunciation of the world until on a walk near her home she meets Philip Wakem. Philip convinces Maggie that she must not give up her desires and offers himself as a friend and tutor. While Maggie struggles within herself, Tom is at work in the business world. He saves his money to pay off his father's debts, and under Bob Jakin's guidance he goes into speculations of his own. He has just saved up enough money to pay the debts when he discovers that Maggie has been

meeting Philip and that they have declared their love for one another. By threatening to tell their father he forces her to give up Philip. Soon after this the debts are paid. On his first new day as an "honest man," Tulliver meets Wakem at the mill and falls on him with a stick. Maggie tries to hold her father back, but the excitement causes him to take to his bed, and he dies there. Several years later Maggie visits her cousin Lucy and is introduced to Lucy's love, Stephen Guest. Lucy has invited Philip Wakem to join them, for he is a friend of Stephen's. Maggie finds it necessary to ask Tom's permission to meet Philip. Lucy guesses that there was something between Philip and Maggie and forces Maggie to tell her. She begins to lay plans to bring the two together again. Tom meanwhile has been doing very well with Guest and Company, and he is offered a share in the business. He proposes that the company try again to buy the mill and make him manager. The outcome is left indefinite as he goes off on business. A mutual attraction begins to develop between Stephen and Maggie, but both of them resist it. Philip quickly notices it but tries not to believe in it. Lucy never notices it at all; instead, she seizes on the mill as a way of bringing Philip and Maggie together. She gets Philip to maneuver his father into consenting to sell the mill and allowing Philip to marry Maggie. She imagines that Tom will be so pleased at regaining the mill that he will consent to the marriage. Tom will not. Stephen, in a moment of weakness at a dance, kisses Maggie's arm, and she repulses him. She feels that this frees her, but when she goes to visit her aunt Moss, Stephen comes there seeking forgiveness. They declare their mutual love but determine to part out of respect for Lucy and Philip. But when Maggie returns, Philip becomes convinced that she and Stephen are in love. One morning Lucy goes out of town in order to leave Maggie alone with Philip. Philip was supposed to take the two girls rowing, but he sends Stephen in his place, so that Stephen and Maggie are alone together. Carried away by the current of their emotion, they row down the river past their stopping-point and go on so far that they could not get home before dark. Stephen convinces Maggie that she should go away and be married to him.

But by morning Maggie realizes what she has done, and she leaves Stephen and returns home. Word that she had been seen with Stephen at a town downriver has been brought by Bob Jakin, and when Maggie returns home Tom refuses to allow her in his house. Maggie and her mother take lodging with Bob Jakin, and Maggie finds work as a governess with Dr. Kenn, the clergyman of St. Ogg's. She is looked on as a fallen woman and cast out from local society. Eventually Dr. Kenn is forced to let her go because of persistent rumors that he intends to marry her. A letter arrives from Stephen asking her to come to him. She is tempted, but resolves not to go. She plans instead to go away and find work. She is praying for guidance when the long-threatened flood breaks into Bob's riverside house. Maggie wakes the family, but in trying to get them into boats she is swept away in a boat by herself. She steers the boat to the mill and rescues Tom. They are going together to find Lucy when they are swept under by floating debris. Their bodies are found and buried together when the flood recedes. The Mill on the Floss By George Eliot Critical Essay Direct Address and Authorial Comment The author makes extensive use of direct address to comment on the action or on characters, either in her own voice or in that of the narrator. This is a technique which is little used in present-day fiction. It has been almost entirely supplanted by Henry James's concept of the novel as a separate self-contained world which makes no reference to author or reader. However, it was standard technique in Eliot's day for the author to address the reader. Such comment is combined with an omniscient point of view in order to help the reader better understand the characters and their problems. In this novel the author is aiming specifically at enlarging the reader's understanding of the complexities of human life. George Eliot once wrote, "The only effect I ardently long to produce by my writings is, that those who read them should be better able to imagine and to feel the pains and the joys of those who differ from themselves in everything but the broad fact of being struggling, erring, human creatures." Her technique is appropriate to this aim.

The author's comments are often an analysis of a character or of society. Consider Book I, Chapter 12: "the mind of St. Ogg's did not look extensively before or after. It inherited a long past without thinking of it, and had no eyes for the spirits that walked the streets . . . . The days were gone when people could be greatly wrought upon by their faith, still less change it: the Catholics were formidable because they would lay hold of government and property, and burn men alive; not because any sane and honest parishioner of St. Ogg's could be brought to believe in the Pope . . . . Dissent was an inheritance along with a superior pew and a business connection . . . ." Such comment can produce an intimacy as deep as that given by internal representation of a character's thoughts. It also helps to place the character in a detailed social context. Eliot said it was her habit to "strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the character itself." The author's comments help the reader to maintain the proper attitude to the characters. When Maggie is swept away by the writings of Thomas Kempis, the author provides a mature analysis of her immature reaction: "She had not perceived how could she until she had lived longer? the inmost truth of the old monk's outpourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it" (Book IV, Chapter 3). Often the author speaks on behalf of characters who are inarticulate in themselves. Mrs. Tulliver is consistently explained to us, although usually in an ironic manner. Nevertheless, the author's attitude is one of sympathy, not satire. This is true even when she speaks for characters who are generally capable of expressing themselves. She continually strives to put the reader in sympathy with all the characters, to help him realize the complexity of all human relationships. Stephen may be taken as an example: "It is clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was not a hypocrite capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end; and yet his fluctuations between the indulgence of a feeling and the systematic concealment of it, might have made a good case in support of Philip's accusation" (Book VI, Chapter 9). The author often addresses the reader to add judgments of her own to the raw data of the story. That is, she presents the world after a process of thought and consideration. This being the case, the quality of the judgments becomes important. One of the fine points of the novel is the soundness of the author's observations on society and on people, on human emotions and

relationships. Often enough these are commonplaces, but they are rarely commonplace. The author has a knack for making common truths satisfying. From Book IV, Chapter 2: "There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a stimulus, and produces an excitement which is transient strength. It is in the slow, changed life that follows in the time when sorrow has become stale, and has no longer an emotive intensity that counteracts its pain in the time when day follows day in dull unexpectant sameness, and trial is a dreary routine; it is then that despair threatens; it is then that the peremptory hunger of the soul is felt, and eye and ear are strained after some unlearned secret of our existence, which shall give to endurance the nature of satisfaction." Frequently the comments are used as technical points to shift the point of view, to underline character or action, to give the effect of passage of time. More than once they provide a key to the imagery being used. But normally they are meant to involve the reader, to connect the world of the novel with his own. For this reason they should not engage him in debate or distract him. On occasion they fail, but the occasions are rare. The failures are due to archness, aggressiveness, or florid rhetoric. Chapter 12 of Book I contains a case which falls flat through straining after humor: " . . . the black ships unlade themselves of their burthens from the far north, and carry away, in exchange, the precious inland products, the well-crushed cheese and the soft fleeces, which my refined readers have doubtless become acquainted with through the medium of the best classic pastorals." However, for the most part the comments are delightful in themselves. They contain much of the humor of the book. The author shows a sure comic touch in such lines as: "Such glances and tones bring the breath of poetry with them into a room that is half-stifling with glaring gas and hard flirtation"; or, "They didn't know there was any other religion, except that of chapel-goers, which appeared to run in families, like asthma." Like these, the comments are generally ironic and often witty. They should not be seen as blemishes in the novel, but as an integral and important part of the author's technique. Wuthering Heights at a Glance In Emily Bront's Wuthering Heights, realism and gothic symbolism combine to form a romance novel that's full of social relevance. Follow the self-destructive journey of Heathcliff as he seeks revenge for losing his soul mate, Catherine, to Edgar Linton. Themes such as good versus evil, chaos

and order, selfishness, betrayal, and obsession intertwine as the story unfolds. Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is a symbolic and psychological study of the nature of love. Type of Work: novel Genres: gothic literature; Victorian; romance First Published: 1847 Setting: the moors of Northern England Main Characters: Heathcliff; Catherine Earnshaw; Edgar Linton; Cathy Linton; Hareton Earnshaw; Ellen (Nelly) Dean Major Thematic Topics: romantic love; brotherly love; love versus hate; revenge; crime and punishment; nature and culture; class structure; good versus evil; chaos and order; selfishness; betrayal; obsession Motifs: obsession; revenge; rebellion Major Symbols: the houses; keys; archetypical characters The three most important aspects of Wuthering Heights:

Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw are among the most famous fictional couples of all time. In fact, they probably are second only to Romeo and Juliet in this regard. Unlike Shakespeare's lovers, who are kept apart by the society in which they live, Catherine and Heathcliff are themselves responsible for their failure to fulfill their love for one another. Their own passionate natures make their union impossible. The novel contains a so-called framing device, which is a story that surrounds the primary narrative and sets it up. Lockwood's visit to Wuthering Heights and the supernatural occurrence he witnesses there frame Nelly's narration of the novel's main story. Wuthering Heights is a gothic novel. Gothic novels focus on the mysterious or supernatural, and take place in dark, sometimes exotic, settings. The double is a frequent feature of the Gothic novel, as well. In Wuthering Heights, the love of Hareton and Cathy doubles that of Heathcliff and Catherine, and Linton doubles Edgar. The novel itself

consists of two entire stories, each consisting of seventeen chapters; the second half of Wuthering Heights doubles the first. Critical Essays The Narrative Structure of Wuthering Heights Although Lockwood and Nelly serve as the obvious narrators, others are interspersed throughout the novel Heathcliff, Isabella, Cathy, even Zillah who narrate a chapter or two, providing insight into both character and plot development. Catherine does not speak directly to the readers (except in quoted dialogue), but through her diary, she narrates important aspects of the childhood she and Heathcliff shared on the moors and the treatment they received at the hands of Joseph and Hindley. All of the voices weave together to provide a choral narrative. Initially, they speak to Lockwood, answering his inquiries, but they speak to readers, also, providing multiple views of the tangled lives of the inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. Bront appears to present objective observers, in an attempt to allow the story to speak for itself. Objective observations by outsiders would presumably not be tainted by having a direct involvement; unfortunately, a closer examination of these two seemingly objective narrators reveals their bias. For example, Lockwood's narrative enables readers to begin the story when most of the action is already completed. Although the main story is being told in flashback, having Lockwood interact with Heathcliff and the others at Wuthering Heights immediately displaces his objectivity. What he records in his diary is not just what he is being told by Nelly but his memories and interpretation of Nelly's tale. Likewise, Nelly's narrative directly involves the reader and engages them in the action. While reporting the past, she is able to foreshadow future events, which builds suspense, thereby engaging readers even more. But her involvement is problematic because she is hypocritical in her actions: sometimes choosing Edgar over Heathcliff (and vice versa), and at times working with Cathy while at other times betraying Cathy's confidence. Nonetheless, she is quite an engaging storyteller, so readers readily forgive her shortcomings. Ultimately, both Lockwood and Nelly are merely facilitators, enabling readers to enter the world of Wuthering Heights. All readers know more than any one narrator, and therefore are empowered as they read.

Wuthering Heights By Emily Bront Critical Essays Heathcliff's Obsession in Wuthering Heights Throughout Wuthering Heights two distinct yet related obsessions drive Heathcliff's character: his desire for Catherine's love and his need for revenge. Catherine, the object of his obsession, becomes the essence of his life, yet, in a sense, he ends up murdering his love. Ironically, after her death, Heathcliff's obsession only intensifies. Heathcliff's love for Catherine enables him to endure Hindley's maltreatment after Mr. Earnshaw's death. But after overhearing Catherine admit that she could not marry him, Heathcliff leaves. Nothing is known of his life away from her, but he returns with money. Heathcliff makes an attempt to join the society to which Catherine is drawn. Upon his return, she favors him to Edgar but still he cannot have her. He is constantly present, lurking around Thrushcross Grange, visiting after hours, and longing to be buried in a connected grave with her so their bodies would disintegrate into one. Ironically, his obsession with revenge seemingly outweighs his obsession with his love, and that is why he does not fully forgive Catherine for marrying Edgar. After Catherine's death, he must continue his revenge a revenge that starts as Heathcliff assumes control of Hindley's house and his son and continues with Heathcliff taking everything that is Edgar's. Although Heathcliff constantly professes his love for Catherine, he has no problem attempting to ruin the life of her daughter. He views an ambiguous world as black and white: a world of haves and have-nots. And for too long, he has been the outsider. That is why he is determined to take everything away from those at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange who did not accept him. For Heathcliff, revenge is a more powerful emotion than love. Wuthering Heights By Emily Bront Wuthering Heights at a Glance In Emily Bront's Wuthering Heights, realism and gothic symbolism combine to form a romance novel that's full of social relevance. Follow the selfdestructive journey of Heathcliff as he seeks revenge for losing his soul mate, Catherine, to Edgar Linton. Themes such as good versus evil, chaos and order, selfishness, betrayal, and obsession intertwine as the story unfolds. Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is a symbolic and psychological study of the nature of love.

Written by: Emily BrontType of Work: novelGenres: gothic literature; Victorian; romanceFirst Published: 1847Setting: the moors of Northern EnglandMain Characters: Heathcliff; Catherine Earnshaw; Edgar Linton; Cathy Linton; Hareton Earnshaw; Ellen (Nelly) DeanMajor Thematic Topics: romantic love; brotherly love; love versus hate; revenge; crime and punishment; nature and culture; class structure; good versus evil; chaos and order; selfishness; betrayal; obsession Motifs: obsession; revenge; rebellion Major Symbols: the houses; keys; archetypical characters The three most important aspects of Wuthering Heights:

Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw are among the most famous fictional couples of all time. In fact, they probably are second only to Romeo and Juliet in this regard. Unlike Shakespeare's lovers, who are kept apart by the society in which they live, Catherine and Heathcliff are themselves responsible for their failure to fulfill their love for one another. Their own passionate natures make their union impossible. The novel contains a so-called framing device, which is a story that surrounds the primary narrative and sets it up. Lockwood's visit to Wuthering Heights and the supernatural occurrence he witnesses there frame Nelly's narration of the novel's main story. Wuthering Heights is a gothic novel. Gothic novels focus on the mysterious or supernatural, and take place in dark, sometimes exotic, settings. The double is a frequent feature of the Gothic novel, as well. In Wuthering Heights, the love of Hareton and Cathy doubles that of Heathcliff and Catherine, and Linton doubles Edgar. The novel itself consists of two entire stories, each consisting of seventeen chapters; the second half of Wuthering Heights doubles the first.

Wuthering Heights By Emily Bront About Wuthering Heights Although Wuthering Heights received neither critical praise nor any local popularity during its initial publication, the reading public has changed substantially since 1847, and now both critical and popular opinion praise Emily Bront's singular work of fiction. Victorian society would not accept the violent characters and harsh realities of Wuthering Heights, but subsequent audiences are both more understanding and accepting of the use of unsavory aspects of human life in literature.

The first person to praise publicly Wuthering Heights was Charlotte Bront, Emily's sister, who wrote a preface and introduction for the second publication of the novel in 1850 and became the novel's first and foremost critic. Yet Charlotte herself was not entirely convinced of all its merits. Commenting upon the advisability of creating characters such as Heathcliff, Charlotte states, "I scarcely think it is [advisable]." Charlotte's comments may be a direct concession and appeal to Victorian audiences to accept and respect Wuthering Heights without having to accept completely everything within the text. In addition to having difficulty with the content, the Victorian audience's view of women could not allow anyone of that period to accept that Wuthering Heights was the creation of a female (it had been published originally under the pseudonym Ellis Bell). After its initial publication, both critical and popular audiences ended up embracing Wuthering Heights, and it remains one of the classic works still read and studied. Wuthering Heights is an important contemporary novel for two reasons: Its honest and accurate portrayal of life during an early era provides a glimpse of history, and the literary merit it possesses in and of itself enables the text to rise above entertainment and rank as quality literature. The portrayal of women, society, and class bear witness to a time that's foreign to contemporary readers. But even though society is different today than it was two centuries ago, people remain the same, and contemporary readers can still relate to the feelings and emotions of the central characters Heathcliff and Catherine as well as those of the supporting characters. Because Bront's characters are real, they are human subjects with human emotions; therefore, Wuthering Heights is not just a sentimental romance novel. It is a presentation of life, an essay on love, and a glimpse at relationships. Many critics, praising Bront's style, imagery, and word choice, contend that Wuthering Heights is actually poetry masquerading as prose. This lyrical prose has a distinct structure and style. Significantly, Wuthering Heights is about ordered pairs: two households, two generations, and two pairs of children. Some critics dismiss the plot of the second-generation characters as being a simple retelling of the first story; however, in doing so, they are dismissing the entire second half of the book. Each of the two main story lines of the two generations comprises 17 chapters. Clearly, in order to appreciate fully Wuthering Heights, attention must be paid to the second

half, particularly noting that the second half is not just a retelling but rather a revising a form of renewal and rebirth. These ordered pairs more often than not, are pairs of contrast. The most noticeable pair is that of the two houses: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Wuthering Heights has the wild, windy moors and its inhabitants possess the same characteristics. Opposite this are the calm, orderly parks of Thrushcross Grange and its inhabitants. Each household has a male and female with a counterpart at the other. Readers gain insight into these characters not only by observing what they think, say, and do but also by comparing them to their counterparts, noticing how they do not think, speak, and act. Much is learned by recognizing what one is not. Structurally, the narrative is also primarily told from a paired point of view. Lockwood frames the initial story, telling the beginning and ending chapters (with minor comments within). Within the framework of his story, Nelly relates the majority of the action from her outsider's point of view. In essence, readers are eavesdropping rather than experiencing the action. And embedded within Nelly's narrative are chapters told primarily from another character's point of view that has been related to Nelly. This technique allows readers to experience more than would with any one narrator, enabling readers to gain an insider's perspective. The role of the outsider should not be overlooked because the setting of Wuthering Heights is one of complete isolation; therefore, only those with first- or second-hand experiences are able to relate them to others. The moors connecting Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange serve a dual purpose linking the two households while simultaneously separating them from the village and all others. This isolated setting is important for Bront's combination of realism and gothic symbolism. Bront took conventions of the time and instead of merely recreating them in a work of her own, used them as a springboard to write an entirely original tale, creating characters who are simultaneously real and symbolic archetypes. Bront uses these characters to explore themes of good versus evil, crime and punishment, passion versus rationality, revenge, selfishness, division and reconciliation, chaos and order, nature and culture, health and sickness,

rebellion, and the nature of love. These themes are not independent of each other; rather, they mix, mingle, and intertwine as the story unfolds. Wuthering Heights is also a social novel about class structure in society as well as a treatise on the role of women. Bront illustrates how class mobility is not always moving in one direction. For Catherine, representing a lower class, social class plays a major role when deciding to get married. That is why she cannot marry Heathcliff and agrees, instead, to marry Edgar. For Isabella, however, just the opposite is true. She is drawn to the wild, mysterious man, regardless of the fact that he is beneath her social standing. Because of her infatuation, she loses everything that is dear to her. Readers must therefore look not only to social class when judging and analyzing characters; they must determine what decisions are made by members of a certain class and why these characters made the decisions they did. On the surface, Wuthering Heights is a love story. Delving deeper, readers find both a symbolic and psychological novel. (Contemporary audiences, for example, easily relate to issues of child abuse and alcoholism.) In fact, Wuthering Heights cannot be easily classified as any particular type of novel that is the literary strength that Bront's text possesses. The novel told from multiple points of view is easily read and interpreted from multiple perspectives, also. Like other literary masterpieces, Wuthering Heights has spawned dramatic productions, a musical retelling, movies, and even a novel that fills in the gaps of Heathcliff's three missing years. Emily Bront's novel has overcome its initial chilly reception to warm the hearts of romantics and realists worldwide. Vanity Fair By William Makepeace Thackeray Book Summary Amelia Sedley, of good family, and Rebecca Sharp, an orphan, leave Miss Pinkerton's academy on Chiswick Mall to live out their lives in Vanity Fair the world of social climbing and search for wealth. Amelia does not esteem the values of Vanity Fair; Rebecca cares for nothing else. Rebecca first attempts to enter the sacred domain of Vanity Fair by inducing Joseph Sedley, Amelia's brother, to marry her. George Osborne, however, foils this plan; he intends to marry Amelia and does not want a governess for a sister-in-law. Rebecca takes a position as governess at Queen's Crawley,

and marries Rawdon Crawley, second son of Sir Pitt Crawley. Because of his marriage, Rawdon's rich aunt disinherits him. First introduced as a friend of George Osborne, William Dobbin becomes the instrument for getting George to marry Amelia, after George's father has forbidden the marriage on account of the Sedley's loss of fortune. Because of George's marriage, old Osborne disinherits him. Both young couples endeavor to live without sufficient funds. George dies at Waterloo. Amelia would have starved but for William Dobbin's anonymous contribution to her welfare. Joseph goes back to his post in India, claiming such valor at Waterloo that he earns the nickname "Waterloo Sedley." Actually he fled at the sound of the cannon. Both Rebecca and Amelia give birth to sons. Rebecca claims she will make Rawdon's fortune, but actually she hides much of her loot, obtained from admiring gentlemen. When she becomes the favorite of the great Lord Steyne, she accumulates both money and diamonds. In the meantime innocent Rawdon draws closer to Lady Jane, wife of Rawdon's older brother, Pitt, who has inherited from the rich aunt. When Rawdon discovers Rebecca in her treachery, he is convinced that money means more to her than he or the son whom she has always hated. He refuses to see her again and takes a post in Coventry Island, where he dies of yellow fever. Because her parents are starving and she can neither provide for them nor give little Georgy what she thinks he needs, Amelia gives up her son to his grandfather Osborne. William Dobbin comes back from the service, reconciles old Osborne to Amelia, whereat Osborne makes a will leaving Georgy half of his fortune and providing for Amelia. Rebecca, having lost the respectability of a husband, wanders in Europe for a couple of years and finally meets Joseph, Georgy, Amelia, and William on the Continent. Rebecca sets about to finish what she started to do at the first of the book that is, to ensnare Joseph. She does not marry him, but she takes all his money and he dies in terror of her, the implication being that she has, at least, hastened his death. At the end of the book Rebecca has the money necessary to live in Vanity Fair; she appears to be respectable. William has won Amelia. Rebecca has been the one who jolted Amelia into recognition that George, her first love, wasn't worthy.

Little Rawdon, upon the death of his uncle Pitt and his cousin Pitt, becomes the heir of Queen's Crawley. Little George, through the kindness of Dobbin, has lost his distorted values obtained in Vanity Fair. The reader feels that these young persons of the third generation will be better people than their predecessors in Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair By William Makepeace Thackeray About Vanity Fair Vanity Fair, a satirical novel of manners, was published (1847-48) in serial form without sufficient time for revisions by Thackeray. Occasionally, time sequences are not clear. Names are not always consistent; for example, Mrs. Bute Crawley is sometimes Martha, sometimes Barbara. Glorvina, sister of Peggy O'Dowd, is also called Glorvina O'Dowd, as if she were Major O'Dowd's sister. Promotion in military status may change titles, and advancement in society may change rank and title. In spite of the confusion, Vanity Fair fascinates the careful reader. Over a hundred years ago when this book was written, readers had time to savor Thackeray's various digressions into morals, psychology, and human foibles. The modern reader may be bewildered by the rambling, and by the vast number of characters, some of whom appear only as names. However, he will have no trouble following the six main characters through changes of fortune and, in some cases, of outlook. Any curiosity aroused concerning a character will be satisfied by the time one has finished the story. For the purposes of this study, the book has been divided into the original installments as published. This set of notes does not attempt to take the place of reading the book. It would be impossible to catch the sly irony, the tongue-in-cheek humor of Thackeray's remarks on the human race without reading Vanity Fair at sufficient leisure to realize its subtle meanings. Of necessity, because of the length of the book, this condensation must leave out many incidents and commentaries by the author. For this reason, also, the student is urged to read Vanity Fair for himself. Critical Essays Symbolism in Vanity Fair Thackeray takes symbols from everyday life, from the classics, and from the Bible. He shows Rebecca ensnaring Joseph in a tangle of green silk, at their first acquaintance. As Becky climbs the social stairway, she is likened to a spider. At the close of the book, she has literally entangled and destroyed

Joseph just as a spider would its victim. She sucked his money, his vitality, his personality from him. She did not reduce Rawdon to such a shell, but she played Delilah to his Samson. At the charade party Rebecca plays Clytemnestra, symbolic of her destruction first of Rawdon, second of Joseph. (Clytemnestra killed her husband, Agamemnon, when her lover's courage failed.) Rebecca is also called Circe, the siren who lured men to their death. Sir Pitt refers to the Bute Crawleys as Beauty and the Beast, a symbolic hint that Bute has married a battle-axe, which he has. The Osborne household keeps time by a clock representing the sacrifice of Iphigenia. Iphigenia, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, was sacrificed by her father for success in war, another route to power and position. Old Osborne tries to sacrifice George to a marriage for money; he destroys Miss Jane's one romance for his own selfish convenience. The Iphigenia clock, then, symbolizes the complete subordination of the Osbornes to money and social success. Amelia's giving up Georgy is compared to Hannah's giving up Samuel. The Bible story has religious significance; Hannah gives up her son to the Lord. In Vanity Fair, Amelia, though she is not of Vanity Fair, surrenders her son to advantages that money and position can provide. The symbol here may be ironic. Critical Essays Humorous Situations in Vanity Fair Joseph, embarrassed when he first meets Rebecca, turns red, can't talk, and yanks the bell rope loose. Sir Pitt is a stingy, dirty, disreputable boor who can't spell, doesn't read, eats boiled mutton, and has but one candle in the house; but it stands in an ornate silver candlestick, and three footmen serve the boiled mutton. Old Sir Pitt proposes marriage to Becky: "I'm an old man, but a good'n. I'm good for twenty years. I'll make you happy, see if I don't. You shall do what you like; spend what you like; and 'av it all your own way. I'll make you a settlement. I'll do everything reglar. Look year!" and the old man fell down on his knees and leered at her like a satyr.

Rebecca started back a picture of consternation. In the course of this history we have never seen her lose her presence of mind; but she did now, and wept some of the most genuine tears that ever fell from her eyes. "Oh, Sir Pitt!" she said. "Oh, sir I I'm married already." When the party gets ready to leave Brighton, Amelia rises to pack, while her husband lies in bed "deploring that she had not a maid to help her." When Becky wants to impress someone with her domesticity and her love for her child, she pulls out a little shirt that she is sewing for little Rawdon, but he outgrows it long before it is finished. Jos calls on Becky in her room at the "Elephant." She has to do some quick house cleaning: In that instant she put a rouge-pot, a brandy-bottle, and a plate of broken meat into the bed . . . she placed herself on the bed not on the bottle and plate, you may be sure . . . she put her hand to her heart with a passionate gesture of despair, burying her face for a moment on the bed. The brandy-bottle inside clinked up against the plate which held the cold sausage. Both were moved, no doubt, by the exhibition of so much grief . . . that spotless being that miserable unsullied martyr was present on the bed before Jos on the bed, sitting on the brandy-bottle. Critical Essays Imagery in Vanity Fair The symbolism described in the foregoing paragraphs constitutes one form of imagery. To continue with similar figures which may not be considered broadly symbolic, one reads of Miss Pinkerton, "the Semiramis of Hammersmith." Sermiramis was an Assyrian queen noted for beauty, wisdom, and voluptuousness. Hammersmith was a metropolitan borough of London. Obviously the figure is ironic. When Pitt lures James into trouble by urging him to drink and smoke in Miss Crawley's house, Thackeray calls Pitt, Machiavel, a name synonymous with political cunning, duplicity, and bad faith. Old Sir Pitt, called Silenus, leers at Becky like a satyr. In mythology Silenus is a fat old man, jolly, intoxicated, an attendant of Bacchus. Satyrs are goatlike men, attendants of Bacchus, the god of wine.

Men and women are compared to trees and birds: "While Becky Sharp was on her own wing in the country, hopping on all sorts of twigs and amid a multiplicity of traps, and pecking up her food quite harmless and successful, Amelia lay snug in her home . . ." He compares George to a tree where Amelia can built her nest but says it is not safe. When Dobbin has at last won Amelia, the author says, "The bird has come in at last. There it is with its head on his shoulder, billing and cooing close up to his heart with soft outstretched fluttering wings . . ." He calls Dobbin the "rugged old oak to which you cling." Dobbin, the "uproused British lion," tells his sisters they "hiss and shriek and cackle . . . don't begin to cry. I only said you were a couple of geese." Thackeray compares Amelia to a violet, speaks of her nursing the corpse of Love, after George seems to have abandoned her In caring for her father, she appears to Dobbin to walk "into the room as silently as a sunbeam." Pitt Crawley is "pompous as an undertaker." Lady Crawley is a "mere machine in her husband's house." Amelia is a "poor little white-robed angel," who fortunately can't hear George and his fellows roaring over their whiskey-punch. When the ladies cry, the author says, "The waterworks again began to play." Miss Swartz, in fancy garments, is dressed "about as elegantly . . . as a she chimney-sweep on May Day." Dobbin, on contemplating Becky's flirtation, has "a countenance as glum as an undertaker's." When Amelia comes out, just before George's departure for battle, holding his sash against her bosom, Thackeray says "the heavy net of crimson dropped like a large stain of blood," a possible symbol of George's fate. The note George gives Becky asking her to run away with him, lies "coiled like a snake among the flowers." When Becky exploits her fellow men, she is like the mermaid feeding below the surface of the water on the pickled victims. The "sheep-dog," or female companion necessary to the vivacious social climber in Vanity Fair, reminds Thackeray of "the death's head which figured in the repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants . . ." Mrs. Bowls, formerly Firkin, maid to Miss Crawley, extends her hand to Becky and "her fingers were like so many sausages, cold and lifeless." Mrs. Frederick Bullock's kiss is "like the contact of an oyster."

One of the most humorous comparisons is that of cleaning a woman's reputation by presenting her at Court as one would clean dirty linen by putting it through the laundry. A countess of sixty is compared with faded street lights. She has "chinks and crannies" in her face. The calling cards from the ladies of Lord Steyne's family are "the trumps of Becky's hand." But Steyne says, "You poor little earthenware pipkin, you want to swim down the stream along with the great copper kettles." When Georgy's nose is hurt, one does not see blood, but "the claret drawn from his own little nose." Becky calls herself a mouse, perhaps able to help the lion, the second Sir Pitt. To indicate that the servants are gossiping about Becky, Thackeray personifies Discovery and Calumny as the waiters who serve the food and drink. When Dobbin comes home, the English landscape "seems to shake hands" with him. Dobbin's desire is a "bread-and-butter paradise." Becky is a hardened Ishmaelite who halts at Jos' tents and rests. Vanity Fair By William Makepeace Thackeray Critical Essays Technique and Style of Vanity Fair The story is presented by summarized narrative, bits of drama, interpolated essays, without much recourse to the minds of the characters. If there is any doubt as to how the reader should judge an individual, the author steps in and makes appropriate comment. For example, when the Sedleys lose their money, the chief critic and enemy is old Osborne, whom Sedley has started in business. Thackeray comments on the psychology of old Osborne's attitude: When one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger would be . . . a persecutor is bound to show that the fallen man is a villain otherwise he, the persecutor, is a wretch himself. Here is an example of dramatic presentation. Amelia visits Becky to find out if she can help her. Becky has hidden her brandy bottle in the bed, and is putting forth every effort to engage Amelia's sympathy by way of little Rawdon:

"My agonies," Becky continued, "were terrible (I hope she won't sit down on the bottle) when they took him away from me I thought I should die; but I fortunately had a brain fever, during which my doctor gave me up, and and I recovered, and and here I am, poor and friendless." "How old is he?" Emmy asked. "Eleven," said Becky. "Eleven!" cried the other. "Why, he was born the same year with George who is " "I know, I know," Becky cried out, who had in fact quite forgotten all about little Rawdon's age. "Grief has made me forget so many things, dearest Amelia. I am very much changed: half wild some times. He was eleven when they took him away from me. Bless his sweet face, I have never seen it again." "Was he fair or dark?" went on that absurd little Emmy. "Show me his hair." Becky almost laughed at her simplicity . . . Usually Thackeray just describes what happens. George and Becky are talking about how Becky can get next to Briggs, Miss Crawley's maid, and thereby see Miss Crawley and regain her favor for Rawdon. Becky says she will find out when Briggs goes to bathe; she will dive in under Briggs' awning and "insist on a reconciliation". The idea amuses George, who bursts out laughing, whereat Rawdon shouts at them to ask what the joke is. Thackeray does not say Amelia is jealous, he shows the reader what she does: "Amelia was making a fool of herself in an absurd hysterical manner, and retired to her own room to whimper in private." Instead of showing, sometimes the author tells what the situation is. Of Sir Pitt's second wife, he says, "Her heart was dead long before her body. She had sold it to become Sir Pitt Crawley's wife. Mothers and daughters are making the same bargain every day in Vanity Fair." Although Thackeray claims to write about real people, at the close of the book, he says, "Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for

our play is played out." Thackeray does write about real people; Amelia is drawn from Mrs. Thackeray. However, in the writing of a story, there is a transformation and adaptation which justifies also the figure of the manipulation of puppets. The author calls his characters ironic or patronizing names such as "Our poor Emmy," or "Our darling Rebecca." The modern reader may think his writings full of clichs. One must remember, however, that Thackeray makes fun of just such patronizing expressions, and one cannot be sure that he uses such expressions seriously. Thackeray likes certain words such as "killing." Sometimes his punctuation seems old-fashioned, like his use of the colon instead of a period in sentences like: "William knew her feelings: had he not passed his whole life in divining them?" Sentence structure ranges from a few words to a whole paragraph. The variety tends to make the story readable, slows the pace or quickens it; variation may come in the form of a question or direct address. Essay or narration alternates with dialogue and dramatic action. Because the story was written as a serial, Thackeray didn't have the whole manuscript in hand for completion and correction. As a result the story rambles; essays have been inserted as padding; there is a certain amount of confusion in regard to names, places, and time. For example, Mrs. Bute Crawley is sometimes Martha, sometimes Barbara. Georgy sees Dobbin in London at a time when he is in Madras. Critical Essays Irony in Vanity Fair Thackeray's irony takes a wide range sometimes biting, sometimes playful, but always pertinent. A sample of comment on money follows: "I for my part, have known a five-pound note to interpose and knock up a halfcentury's attachment between two brethren; and can't but admire, as I think what a fine and durable thing Love is among worldly people." "What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!" "The good quality of this old lady has been mentioned . . . She had a balance at her banker's which would have made her beloved anywhere." Jane Eyre By Charlotte Bront Jane Eyre at a Glance

Charlotte Bront's Jane Eyre opens with Jane, an orphaned, isolated tenyear-old, living with a family that dislikes her. She grows in strength, excels at school, becomes a governess, and falls in love with Edward Rochester. After being deceived by him, Jane goes to Marsh End, where she regains her spirituality and discovers her own strength. By novel's end, Jane is a strong, independent woman. Charlotte Bront's Jane Eyre still raises relevant questions to readers today. Written by: Charlotte BrontType of Work: novelGenres: gothic; Victorian; romance; bildungsroman (coming of age novel)First Published: 1847Setting: English countryside, 1800sMain Characters: Jane Eyre; Edward Fairfax Rochester; St. John RiversMajor Thematic Topics: class conflict; gender conflict; courtship; mythic; spirituality; familyMotifs: rebellion; substitute mothers; Byronic heroMajor Symbols: Thornfield burning; the red room Here are eight important things to remember about Jane Eyre:

Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel. Other examples of this form include Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Jane Eyre is a typical coming-of-age novel in that its main character, Jane, is young, brave, and resourceful in the face of difficulty and even danger. As a result, she is easy for readers to sympathize with. The phrase "coming-ofage" literally means the character is maturing and coming closer to adulthood. Jane Eyre is a gothic novel. Gothic novels focus on the mysterious; take place in dark, sometimes exotic, settings (often houses that appear to be haunted); but still entail an element of romance. The double is a frequent feature of the Gothic novel, and in a sense Jane and the madwoman in Rochester's attic are doubles two wives, one of sound mind and the other insane. The most famous line in Jane Eyre is "Reader, I married him." This line is significant not only in that it provides the novel with a happy ending, but also because of its active quality, which was probably shocking at the time of the novel's publication. The line "Reader, he married me." would have been more conventional. St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester are foils meaning opposites of one another, especially in relation to Jane. St. John is cold and

dispassionate, while Mr. Rochester is wildly indulgent and passionate. Even their physiques are a foil. Mr. Rochester is not handsome, but he does have extremely masculine features. On the other hand, St. John is classically beautiful. At one point he's described as Athenian, which recalls a grandiose statue to mind. Jane Eyre is rebellious in a world demanding obedient women. In her own way, Jane rebels against Mrs. Reed, St. John Rivers, and even Mr. Rochester, the man she marries at the end of the book. Jane's personality contains many qualities that would be considered desirable in an English woman; she's frank, sincere, and lacks personal vanity. But the rebel streak she has is targeted at "inequalities of society." Jane reacts strongly when she is discredited due to her class and/or gender. One primary theme is class conflict. Although English society has a very strict hierarchy, moments throughout Jane Eyre reveal those lines being blurred. Gender conflict is a theme that threads throughout Jane Eyre. Time and again, Jane is vulnerable to a patriarchal class system that doesn't always have her best interest in mind. A major symbol in Jane Eyre is that of Thornfield burning. Prior to meeting Jane, Mr. Rochester is impulsive and wild. He wants to change and tries to use Jane's purity to help motivate his transformation. Even with Jane's influence, Mr. Rochester can't change. It's not until Thornfield burns down and Mr. Rochester loses his hand and sight that he is able to change. Symbolically, it's as if his lies and passions have finally exploded. Now, Mr. Rochester can change, with the help of Jane, and be the perfect husband.

About The Picture of Dorian Gray On August 30, 1889, Philadelphia publisher Joseph M. Stoddart, managing editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, invited a few guests to dinner at the Langham Hotel in London. Among them were two promising young writers: Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde. Doyle recounts the events of what he calls "a golden evening" in his autobiographical Memories and Adventures (1924). Stoddart was considering an English publication of Lippincott's with a British editor and British contributors. As a result of that evening, Doyle contributed to Lippincott's his second Sherlock Holmes story, "The Sign of Four." Wilde published his first version of The Picture of Dorian Gray in the magazine's July 1890 issue.

Initial response to Wilde's novel was negative if not abusive. The St. James Gazette of June 20, 1890, refers to the "garbage of the French Dcadents" and the "prosy rigmaroles" of the story. The Daily Chronicle of June 30 calls it a "poisonous book." The Scots Observer of July 5 asks, "Why go grubbing in muck-heaps?" Wilde responded to the criticism of his work with numerous letters to editors and added a preface to the book version that came out in the spring of 1891. He also extensively revised Lippincott's version, adding six new chapters (3, 5, 15, 16, 17, and 18), softening the homoerotic references, and dividing Chapter 13 of the original text into Chapters 19 and 20 of the book. Contrary to the reviews' charge that the novel was immoral, Wilde was concerned that the novel was too moral, that it was didactic in its portrayal of the wages of sin. The revised version evoked less negative response, possibly because most of the uproar about the work had faded. W. B. Yeats, the Irish poet and dramatist who would receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923, had some reservations but called it a "wonderful book" in the United Ireland of September 26, 1891. Arthur Conan Doyle was supportive of Dorian Gray in a letter to Wilde. In his response, in April 1891, Wilde wrote, "I cannot understand how they can treat Dorian Gray as immoral. My difficulty was to keep the inherent moral subordinate to the artistic and dramatic effect, and it seems to me that the moral is too obvious." Over the years, writers as diverse as James Joyce and Joyce Carol Oates have praised Wilde with some reservations. The Picture of Dorian Gray is now considered to be at least a pivotal work, if not a classic. Sources from which Wilde drew for his novel include the Faust legend and the Narcissus myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Critics cite various sources for the changing portrait motif. One is that the writer sat for a painter named Basil Ward, who, after finishing the portrait, remarked that it would be delightful if Wilde could remain as he was while the picture aged; however, there is no historical indication that Wilde ever sat for a Basil Ward. Another version of this story links the concept of a portrait aging to a Canadian artist named Frances Richards. Several critics have noted that the politician and novelist Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) anonymously published a book called Vivian Grey in the 1820s and that this novel anticipates Wilde's work. Several other nineteenth-

century novels make use of a magic picture, or doppelganger (a ghostly double of a living person). Wilde's work is so creative, however, that these influences appear to be only coincidental. The structure of Dorian Gray is balanced between Lord Henry's early influence on Dorian (the first ten chapters) and Dorian's life as an adult (the last ten chapters). Each section begins with an expository chapter. Wilde uses devices such as dinner parties to provide temporary relief from intense action. Note also that Wilde's talents as a dramatist often are applied to the novel. Major symbols in the novel include the portrait, which dominates the story as it reflects Dorian's increasing fall into debauchery. The "yellow book" reflects Lord Henry's continuing influence and seems to be a demonic force of its own. The theater run by Mr. Isaacs is a fantasy world for Dorian, who seems incapable of dealing with Sibyl as a real person. The white narcissus reflects Dorian's adoration of self. Lord Henry plays Dorian like a violin, which is mentioned early in the book and becomes a symbol of manipulation. The opera, where the singer Patti performs, is the essence of Aestheticism, while Daly's opium den represents the depths of depravity and excess. Major themes include the Faust legend, the balance of body and soul, the dual nature of man, self-discovery, narcissism, friendship, the fall of man, sin and redemption, and the dangers of personal influence or manipulation. Beyond all of these critical approaches, the story can simply be enjoyed on its own as a well-written tale of suspense and surprise. Critical Essays Oscar Wilde's Aesthetics The philosophical foundations of Aestheticism were formulated in the eighteenth century by Immanuel Kant, who spoke for the autonomy of art. Art was to exist for its own sake, for its own essence or beauty. The artist was not to be concerned about morality or utility or even the pleasure that a work might bring to its audience. Aestheticism was supported in Germany by J. W. von Goethe and in England by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle. Benjamin Constant first used the phrase l'art pour l'art (French, meaning "art for art," or "art for art's sake") in 1804; Victor Cousin popularized the words that became a catch-phrase for Aestheticism in the 1890s. French

writers such as Thophile Gautier and Charles-Pierre Baudelaire contributed significantly to the movement. Oscar Wilde did not invent Aestheticism, but he was a dramatic leader in promoting the movement near the end of the nineteenth century. Wilde was especially influenced as a college student by the works of the English poet and critic Algernon Charles Swinburne and the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The English essayist Walter Pater, an advocate of "art for art's sake," helped to form Wilde's humanistic aesthetics in which he was more concerned with the individual, the self, than with popular movements like Industrialism or Capitalism. Art was not meant to instruct and should not concern itself with social, moral, or political guidance. Like Baudelaire, Wilde advocated freedom from moral restraint and the limitations of society. This point of view contradicted Victorian convention in which the arts were supposed to be spiritually uplifting and instructive. Wilde went a step further and stated that the artist's life was even more important than any work that he produced; his life was to be his most important body of work. The most important of Wilde's critical works, published in May 1891, is a volume titled Intentions. It consists of four essays: "The Decay of Lying," "Pen, Pencil and Poison," "The Critic as Artist," and "The Truth of Masks." These and the contemporary essay "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" affirm Wilde's support of Aestheticism and supply the philosophical context for his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. "The Decay of Lying" was first published in January 1889. Wilde called it a "trumpet against the gate of dullness" in a letter to Kate Terry Lewis. The dialogue, which Wilde felt was his best, takes place in the library of a country house in Nottinghamshire. The participants are Cyril and Vivian, which were the names of Wilde's sons (the latter spelled "Vyvyan"). Almost immediately, Vivian advocates one of the tenets of Wilde's Aestheticism: Art is superior to Nature. Nature has good intentions but can't carry them out. Nature is crude, monotonous, and lacking in design when compared to Art. According to Vivian, man needs the temperament of the true liar" with his frank, fearless statements, his superb irresponsibility, his healthy, natural disdain of proof of any kind!" Artists with this attitude will not be shackled

by sterile facts but will be able to tell beautiful truths that have nothing to do with fact. "Pen, Pencil and Poison" was first published in January 1889. It is a biographical essay on the notorious writer, murderer, and forger Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who used the pen name "Janus Weathercock." Wilde's approach is that Wainewright's criminal activities reveal the soul of a true artist. The artist must have a "concentration of vision and intensity of purpose" that exclude moral or ethical judgment. True aesthetes belong to the "elect," as Wilde calls them in "The Decay of Lying," and are beyond such concerns. As creative acts, there is no significant difference between art and murder. The artist often will conceal his identity behind a mask, but Wilde maintains that the mask is more revealing than the actual face. Disguises intensify the artist's personality. Life itself is an art, and the true artist presents his life as his finest work. Wilde, who attempted to make this distinction in his own life through his attempts to re-create himself, includes this theme in The Picture of Dorian Gray. The longest of the essays in Intentions, "The Critic as Artist," first appeared in two parts (July and September 1890) with the significant title, "The True Function and Value in Criticism; With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing: A Dialogue." It is considered to be a response to Matthew Arnold's essay "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" (1865). Arnold's position is that the creative faculty is higher than the critical. The central thesis of Wilde's essay is that the critic must reach beyond the creative work that he considers. The setting of the dialogue is a library in a house in London's Piccadilly area overlooking Green Park, and the principal characters are Gilbert and Ernest. Along with the central theme of the importance of the critic, Gilbert espouses the significance of the individual. The man makes the times; the times do not make the man. Further, he advocates that "Sin is an essential element of progress." Sin helps assert individuality and avoid the monotony of conformity. Rules of morality are non-creative and, thus, evil. The best criticism must cast off ordinary guidelines, especially those of Realism, and accept the aesthetics of Impressionism what a reader feels when reading a work of literature rather than what a reader thinks, or reasons, while reading. The critic must transcend literal events and consider

the "imaginative passions of the mind." The critic should not seek to explain a work of art but should seek to deepen its mystery. "The Truth of Masks" first appeared in May 1885 under the title "Shakespeare and Stage Costume." The essay originally was a response to an article written by Lord Lytton in December 1884, in which Lytton argues that Shakespeare had little interest in the costumes that his characters wear. Wilde takes the opposite position. More important within the context of Intentions, Wilde himself always put great emphasis on appearance and the masks, or costumes, with which the artist or individual confronts the world. Wilde also raises the question of self-contradiction. In art, he says, there is no such thing as an absolute truth: "A Truth is that whose contradictory is also true." This sentiment recalls Wilde's tremendous respect for the thoughts of Walt Whitman. In "Song of Myself," Whitman writes, "Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes)." "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" first appeared in February 1891. In it, Wilde expresses his Aesthetics primarily through the emphasis that the essay places on the individual. In an unusual interpretation of socialism, Wilde believed that the individual would be allowed to flourish under the system. He thus warns against tyrannical rulers and concludes that the best form of government for the artist is no government at all. In this essay, it's easy to see that Wilde loved to shock. If Walt Whitman wanted to wake the world with his "barbaric yawp," Wilde preferred aphorisms, paradox, irony, and satire. While Wilde wouldn't want to be accused of sincerity, he was certainly devoted to Aestheticism in his life as well as his art. The French Lieutenant's Woman By John Fowles About The French Lieutenant's Woman This novel is based on the nineteenth-century romantic or gothic novel, a literary genre which can trace its origins back to the eighteenth century. Although Fowles perfectly reproduces typical characters, situations, and even dialogue, the reader should always be aware of the irony inherent in Fowles' perception; for his perspective, however cleverly disguised, is that

of the twentieth century. We see this both in the authorial intrusions, which comment on the mores of people in Victorian England, and in his choice of opening quotations, which are drawn from the writings of people whose observations belie the assumptions that most Victorians held about their world. Fowles is concerned in this novel with the effects of society on the individual's awareness of himself or herself and how that awareness dominates and distorts his or her entire life, including relationships with other people. All the main characters in this novel are molded by what they believe to be true about themselves and others. In this case, their lives are governed by what the Victorian Age thought was true about the nature of men and women and their relationships to each other. The French Lieutenant's Woman of the title, for example, is the dark, mysterious woman of the typical Victorian romantic novel. Sometimes the villainess, sometimes the heroine, such a woman was a symbol of what was forbidden. It is this aura of strangeness about Sarah Woodruff that first attracts Charles Smithson's attention. The story that develops around this pair echoes other romantic novels of a similar type, wherein a man falls in love with a strange and sometimes evil woman. Charles' relationship with Ernestina Freeman creates another sort of romantic story, one that formed the basis of many Victorian novels. In the present story, the romantic situation which develops around the pair of aristocratic young people is not allowed to prevail over the forces, including the dark lady, that would normally keep Charles and Ernestina apart. Thus Fowles uses the popularity of the comedy of manners and combines it with the drama and sensationalism of the gothic novel and, using several stylistic conventions, creates a masterful, many-layered mystery that is one of the finest pieces of modern literature. The French Lieutenant's Woman By John Fowles Critical Essay Structure, Style, and Technique in The French Lieutenant's Woman In The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles does not merely recreate a Victorian novel; neither does he parody one. He does a little of both, but also much more. The subject of this novel is essentially the same as that of his other works: the relationship between life and art, the artist and his creation, and the isolation resulting from an individual's struggle for selfhood. He

works within the tradition of the Victorian novel and consciously uses its conventions to serve his own design, all the while carefully informing the reader exactly what he is doing. His style purposely combines a flowing nineteenth-century prose style with an anachronistic twentieth-century perspective. Fowles is as concerned with the details of the setting as were his Victorian counterparts. But he is also conscious that he is setting a scene and does not hesitate to intrude into the narrative himself in order to show the reader how he manipulates reality through his art. Like Dickens, Fowles uses dialogue to reveal the personalities of his characters and often he will satirize them as well. For example, Charles' attitudes toward Sarah and Ernestina are revealed in the way he talks to them. He is forever uncomfortable with Sarah because she won't accept the way in which he categorizes the world, including his view of her. Sarah's responses to the world around her, as seen through her words and actions are consistent, for she is already aware of herself as an individual who cannot be defined by conventional roles. However, Charles changes, depending upon whom he talks to, because he really does not know who he is yet, and he sees himself as playing a series of roles. With his fiance, he is indulgent and paternal; with his servant Sam, he is patronizing and humorous at Sam's expense, and with Sarah, he is stiff and uncomfortable. When he attempts to respond to Sarah's honesty, he hears the hollowness of his own conventional responses. Fowles does not recreate his Victorian world uncritically. He focuses on those aspects of the Victorian era that would seem most alien to a modern reader. In particular, he is concerned with Victorian attitudes towards women, economics, science, and philosophy. In this romance, Fowles examines the problems of two socially and economically oppressed groups in nineteenth-century England: the poverty of the working and servant classes, and the economic and social entrapment of women. While the plot traces a love story, or what seems to be a love story, the reader questions what sort of love existed in a society where many marriages were based as much on economics as on love. This story is thus not really a romance at all, for Fowles' objective is not to unite his two protagonists, Sarah and Charles, but to show what each human being must face in life in order to be able to grow. While Fowles has titled his book The French Lieutenant's Woman, Sarah Woodruff is not really the central character. She does not change greatly in

the novel as it progresses, for she has already arrived at an awareness that she must go beyond the definition of her individuality that society has imposed upon her. Because her situation was intolerable, she was forced to see through it and beyond it in order to find meaning and some sort of happiness in her life. In the early chapters of the novel, she perhaps makes one last effort to establish a life within the norms of Victorian society. She chooses the role of the outcast, the "French lieutenant's whore," and also falls in love with Charles or causes him to fall in love with her. But even as she draws Charles away from his unquestioning acceptance of his life, she finds that she does not want to be rescued from her plight. She has already rescued herself. Charles, it seems, is the actual protagonist of this novel, for he must travel from ignorance to understanding, by following the woman whom he thinks he is helping, but who in fact is his mentor. He must discard each layer of the false Charles: Charles the naturalist, Charles the gentleman, Charles the rake, and perhaps even Charles the lover, in order to find Charles the human being. The knowledge he arrives at is bitter, for he has lost all his illusions, as Sarah discarded hers sometime before. But the result itself is not bitter. Although Charles and Sarah are not reunited, for life's answers are never as simple and perfect as those of art, they both achieve a maturity that enables them to control their lives as long as they remember to look for answers nowhere but in themselves. Fowles has taken two traditional romantic characters, a young hero and a mysterious woman, and has transformed them into human beings. There is no French lieutenant to pine after, and Sarah's life is not a tragedy that echoes her nickname in Lyme. Charles' gift of marriage is not a gift at all. While the novel could have ended with the couple's reconciliation, as it might have had it been a traditional romance, Fowles does not end it there. In the second ending, Sarah rejects the familiar security that Charles offers and both are forced to go on alone. Fowles' novel echoes the doubts raised by such novelists as Thomas Hardy, and by such poets as Matthew Arnold and Alfred Lord Tennyson, about the solidity of the Victorian view of the world. The world was changing and old standards no longer applied, though they lingered on long after many had discarded them in their hearts. This theme that was approached by writers in the nineteenth century is picked up again by Fowles and carried to a logical conclusion. The novel is therefore actually a psychological study of an individual rather than a romance. It is a

novel of individual growth and the awareness of one's basic isolation which accompanies that growth. Overall Summary Middlemarch is a highly unusual novel. Although it is primarily a Victorian novel, it has many characteristics typical to modern novels. Critical reaction to Eliot's masterpiece work was mixed. A common accusation leveled against it was its morbid, depressing tone. Many critics did not like Eliot's habit of scattering obscure literary and scientific allusions throughout the book. In their opinion a woman writer should not be so intellectual. Eliot hated the "silly, women novelists." In the Victorian era, women writers were generally confined to writing the stereotypical fantasies of the conventional romance fiction. Not only did Eliot dislike the constraints imposed on women's writing, she disliked the stories they were expected to produce. Her disdain for the tropes of conventional romance is apparent in her treatment of marriage between Rosamond and Lydgate. Both and Rosamond and Lydgate think of courtship and romance in terms of ideals taken directly from conventional romance. Another problem with such fiction is that marriage marks the end of the novel. Eliot goes through great effort to depict the realities of marriage. Moreover, Eliot's many critics found Middlemarch to be too depressing for a woman writer. Eliot refused to bow to the conventions of a happy ending. An ill-advised marriage between two people who are inherently incompatible never becomes completely harmonious. In fact, it becomes a yoke. Such is the case in the marriages of Lydgate and Dorothea. Dorothea was saved from living with her mistake for her whole life because her elderly husband dies of a heart attack. Lydgate and Rosamond, on the other hand, married young. Two major life choices govern the narrative of Middlemarch. One is marriage and the other is vocation. Eliot takes both choices very seriously. Short, romantic courtships lead to trouble, because both parties entertain unrealistic ideals of each other. They marry without getting to know one another. Marriages based on compatibility work better. Moreover, marriages in which women have a greater say also work better, such as the marriage between Fred and Mary. She tells him she will not marry if he becomes a clergyman. Her condition saves Fred from an unhappy entrapment in an occupation he doesn't like. Dorothea and Casaubon struggle continually

because Casaubon attempts to make her submit to his control. The same applies in the marriage between Lydgate and Rosamond. The choice of an occupation by which one earns a living is also an important element in the book. Eliot illustrates the consequences of making the wrong choice. She also details at great length the consequences of confining women to the domestic sphere alone. Dorothea's passionate ambition for social reform is never realized. She ends with a happy marriage, but there is some sense that her end as merely a wife and mother is a waste. Rosamond's shrewd capabilities degenerate into vanity and manipulation. She is restless within the domestic sphere, and her stifled ambitions only result in unhappiness for herself and her husband. Eliot's refusal to conform to happy endings demonstrates the fact that Middlemarch is not meant to be entertainment. She wants to deal with reallife issues, not the fantasy world to which women writers were often confined. Her ambition was to create a portrait of the complexity of ordinary human life: quiet tragedies, petty character failings, small triumphs, and quiet moments of dignity. The complexity of her portrait of provincial society is reflected in the complexity of individual characters. The contradictions in the character of the individual person are evident in the shifting sympathies of the reader. One moment, we pity Casaubon, the next we judge him critically. Middlemarch stubbornly refuses to behave like a typical novel. The novel is a collection of relationships between several major players in the drama, but no single one person occupies the center of the action. No one person can represent provincial life. It is necessary to include multiple people. Eliot's book is fairly experimental for its time in form and content, particularly because she was a woman writer. Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes The Imperfection of Marriage Most characters in Middlemarch marry for love rather than obligation, yet marriage still appears negative and unromantic. Marriage and the pursuit of it are central concerns in Middlemarch, but unlike in many novels of the time, marriage is not considered the ultimate source of happiness. Two

examples are the failed marriages of Dorothea and Lydgate. Dorotheas marriage fails because of her youth and of her disillusions about marrying a much older man, while Lydgates marriage fails because of irreconcilable personalities. Mr. and Mrs. Bulstrode also face a marital crisis due to his inability to tell her about the past, and Fred Vincy and Mary Garth also face a great deal of hardship in making their union. As none of the marriages reach a perfect fairytale ending, Middlemarch offers a clear critique of the usual portrayal of marriage as romantic and unproblematic. The Harshness of Social Expectations The ways in which people conduct themselves and how the community judges them are closely linked in Middlemarch. When the expectations of the social community are not met, individuals often receive harsh public criticism. For example, the community judges Ladislaw harshly because of his mixed pedigree. Fred Vincy is almost disowned because he chooses to go against his familys wishes and not join the clergy. It is only when Vincy goes against the wishes of the community by foregoing his education that he finds true love and happiness. Finally, Rosamonds need for gentility and the desire to live up to social standards becomes her downfall. In contrast, Dorotheas decision to act against the rules of society allows her to emerge as the most respectable character in the end. Self-Determination vs. Chance In Middlemarch, self-determination and chance are not opposing forces but, rather, a complicated balancing act. When characters strictly adhere to a belief in either chance or self-determination, bad things happen. When Rosamond goes against the wishes of her husband and writes a letter asking for money from his relative, her act of self-determination puts Lydgate in an unsavory and tense situation coupled with a refusal to help. On the flip side, when Fred Vincy gambles away his money, relying solely on chance, he falls into debt and drags with him the people who trust him. Only when he steps away from gambling and decides not to go into the clergy do good things begin to happen for him. In particular, the character of Farebrother demonstrates the balance between fate and self-determination. This balance is exemplified in his educated gamble in the game of whist. Through a combination of skill and chance, he is able to win more often than not. His character strikes a balance between chance and his role in determining that fate. The complexity of the tension between self-determination and chance is

exemplary of the way in which the novel as a whole tends to look at events from many vantage points with no clear right or wrong, no clear enemy or hero. Motifs Epigraphs Each chapter begins with a small quotation or a few lines of verse known as an epigraph. These epigraphs work as a way of summarizing the following chapter and moving the plot forward. They also work to place Middlemarch into a larger canon of literary works, as Eliot chooses quotes a variety of writers such as Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, and William Blake. Eliot was charged with being too intellectual for a woman author in part because of the learned nature of her chosen quotations. Gossip and Speaking for Others Often characters, especially characters of opposite genders, do not communicate to each other directly, instead using other characters to speak on their behalf. Carrying messages, sending diplomats, and not speaking for themselves draws attention to the weblike community of Middlemarch. Part of this web functions to maintain an intricate social web, but it also works to avoid direct communication. Gossip, another form of speaking for another person, plays an important part in the novel as it is often how information is conveyed. Characters frequently use the fact that the information will eventually come around to avoid direct conversation. Debt and Borrowing Money Debt appears throughout Middlemarch, and money often indicates elements of a characters personality. The plot is driven by characters worrying about money or asking others for money. Fred Vincy must ask several people for loans, Lydgate incurs serious debt due to his failure to manage money and his wife Rosamonds cultured tastes, and Raffless constant begging and blackmailing for money indicates his threatening role. On the other hand, Mary Garths refusal to take money from the dying Featherstone proves her good, honest nature. The exchange of money and the passing of debts ties the characters together in an economic subtext.

Symbols The Portrait of Ladislaws Grandmother A miniature portrait of Ladislaws grandmother appears several times in the text and is symbolic of Dorotheas future choice of giving up wealth for love. Ladislaws grandmother also gave up wealth to be with the man she loved. The portrait hangs in Dorotheas bedroom at Casaubons house, and Dorothea often recalls the portrait when she thinks of Ladislaw. When Ladislaw comes to say goodbye to Dorothea in a tense conversation filled with romantic subtext, Dorothea offers him the portrait as a parting gift. When Ladislaw refuses it saying he has no need for the past, he indicates that the chance they will end up together remains. Raffles The character of Raffles symbolizes the ominous return of the past. Most often he appears as a lone black figure walking down the country roads and is described as a man of ill-repute and questionable background, associating the danger of the past with the unsavory lower class. His repeated appearance disrupts the sanctity of Middlemarch, for he ties together the dark pasts of Bulstrode and Ladislaw. His death fuels neighborhood gossip that almost forces Ladislaw from town, causes Bulstrodes downfall, and brings about the climax of the novel. The Plight of the Weak Throughout David Copperfield, the powerful abuse the weak and helpless. Dickens focuses on orphans, women, and the mentally disabled to show that exploitationnot pity or compassionis the rule in an industrial society. Dickens draws on his own experience as a child to describe the inhumanity of child labor and debtors prison. His characters suffer punishment at the hands of forces larger than themselves, even though they are morally good people. The arbitrary suffering of innocents makes for the most vividly affecting scenes of the novel. David starves and suffers in a wine-bottling factory as a child. As his guardian, Mr. Murdstone can exploit David as factory labor because the boy is too small and dependent on him to disobey. Likewise, the boys at Salem House have no recourse against the cruel Mr. Creakle. In both situations, children deprived of the care of their natural parents suffer at the hands of their own supposed protectors.

The weak in David Copperfield never escape the domination of the powerful by challenging the powerful directly. Instead, the weak must ally themselves with equally powerful characters. David, for example, doesnt stand up to Mr. Murdstone and challenge his authority. Instead, he flees to the wealthy Miss Betsey, whose financial stability affords her the power to shelter David from Mr. Murdstone. Davids escape proves neither self-reliance nor his own inner virtue, but rather the significance of family ties and family money in human relationships. Equality in Marriage In the world of the novel, marriages succeed to the extent that husband and wife attain equality in their relationship. Dickens holds up the Strongs marriage as an example to show that marriages can only be happy if neither spouse is subjugated to the other. Indeed, neither of the Strongs views the other as inferior. Conversely, Dickens criticizes characters who attempt to invoke a sense of superiority over their spouses. Mr. Murdstones attempts to improve Davids mothers character, for example, only crush her spirit. Mr. Murdstone forces Clara into submission in the name of improving her, which leaves her meek and voiceless. In contrast, although Doctor Strong does attempt to improve Annies character, he does so not out of a desire to show his moral superiority but rather out of love and respect for Annie. Doctor Strong is gentle and soothing with his wife, rather than abrasive and imperious like Mr. Murdstone. Though Doctor Strongs marriage is based at least partially on an ideal of equality, he still assumes that his wife, as a woman, depends upon him and needs him for moral guidance. Dickens, we see, does not challenge his societys constrictive views about the roles of women. However, by depicting a marriage in which a man and wife share some balance of power, Dickens does point toward an age of empowered women. Wealth and Class Throughout the novel, Dickens criticizes his societys view of wealth and class as measures of a persons value. Dickens uses Steerforth, who is wealthy, powerful, and noble, to show that these traits are more likely to corrupt than improve a persons character. Steerforth is treacherous and selfabsorbed. On the other hand, Mr. Peggotty and Ham, both poor, are generous, sympathetic characters. Many people in Dickenss time believed that poverty was a symptom of moral degeneracy and that people who were

poor deserved to suffer because of inherent deficiencies. Dickens, on the other hand, sympathizes with the poor and implies that their woes result from societys unfairness, not their own failings. Dickens does not go so far as to suggest that all poor people are absolutely noble and that all rich people are utterly evil. Poor people frequently swindle David when he is young, even though he too is poor and helpless. Doctor Strong and Agnes, both wealthy, middle-class citizens, nonetheless are morally upstanding. Dickens does not paint a black-and-white moral picture but shows that wealth and class are are unreliable indicators of character and morality. Dickens invites us to judge his characters based on their individual deeds and qualities, not on the hand that the cruel world deals them. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes. Mothers and Mother Figures Mothers and mother figures have an essential influence on the identity of the characters in David Copperfield. Almost invariably, good mother figures produce good children while bad mothers yield sinister offspring. This moral connection between mothers and children indicates Dickenss belief that mothers have an all-important role in shaping their childrens characters and destinies. The success of mother figures in the novel hinges on their ability to care for their children without coddling them. Miss Betsey, the aunt who raises David, clearly adores him but does not dote on him. She encourages him to be strong in everything he does and to be fair at all times. She corrects him when she thinks he is making a mistake, as with his marriage to Dora, and her ability to see faults in him helps him to mature into a balanced adult. Although Miss Betsey raises David to deal with the difficulties of the world, she does not block those hardships. Instead, she forces David to confront them himself. In contrast, Uriahs mother, Mrs. Heep, dotes on her son and allows him to dominate her. As a result, Uriah develops a vain, inflated selfregard that breeds cruel behavior. On the whole, Dickenss treatment of mother-child relationships in the novel is intended to teach a lesson. He warns mothers to love their children only in moderation and to correct their faults while they can still be fixed.

Accented Speech Dickens gives his characters different accents to indicate their social class. Uriah Heep and Mr. Peggotty are two notable examples of such characters whose speech indicates their social standing. Uriah, in an attempt to appear poor and of good character, consistently drops the h in humble every time a group of Mr. Wickfields friends confront him. Uriah drops this accent as soon as his fraud is revealed: he is not the urchin-child he portrays himself to be, who grew up hard and fell into his current character because of the cruelty of the world. Rather, Uriah is a conniving, double-crossing social climber who views himself as superior to the wealthy and who exploits everyone he can. Mr. Peggottys lower-class accent, on the other hand, indicates genuine humility and poverty. Dickens uses accent in both cases to advance his assertion that class and personal integrity are unrelated and that it is misleading to make any connection between the two. Physical Beauty In David Copperfield, physical beauty corresponds to moral good. Those who are physically beautiful, like Davids mother, are good and noble, while those who are ugly, like Uriah Heep, Mr. Creakle, and Mr. Murdstone, are evil, violent, and ill-tempered. Dickens suggests that internal characteristics, much like physical appearance, cannot be disguised permanently. Rather, circumstances will eventually reveal the moral value of characters whose good goes unrecognized or whose evil goes unpunished. In David Copperfield, even the most carefully buried characteristics eventually come to light and expose elusive individuals for what they really are. Although Steerforth, for example, initially appears harmless but annoying, he cannot hide his true treachery for years. In this manner, for almost all the characters in the novel, physical beauty corresponds to personal worth. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. The Sea The sea represents an unknown and powerful force in the lives of the characters in David Copperfield, and it is almost always connected with death. The sea took Little Emlys father in an unfortunate accident over

which she had no control. Likewise, the sea takes both Ham and Steerforth. The sea washes Steerforth up on the shorea moment that symbolizes Steerforths moral emptiness, as the sea treats him like flotsam and jetsam. The storm in the concluding chapters of the novel alerts us to the danger of ignoring the seas power and indicates that the novels conflicts have reached an uncontrollable level. Like death, the force of the sea is beyond human control. Humans must try to live in harmony with the seas mystical power and take precautions to avoid untimely death. Flowers Flowers represent simplicity and innocence in David Copperfield. For example, Steerforth nicknames David Daisy because David is nave. David brings Dora flowers on her birthday. Dora forever paints flowers on her little canvas. When David returns to the Wickfields house and the Heeps leave, he discovers that the old flowers are in the room, which indicates that the room has been returned to its previous state of simplicity and innocence. In each of these cases, flowers stand as images of rebirth and healtha significance that points to a springlike quality in characters associated with their blossoms. Flowers indicate fresh perspective and thought and often recall moments of frivolity and release. Mr. Dicks Kite Mr. Dicks enormous kite represents his separation from society. Just as the kite soars above the other characters, Mr. Dick, whom the characters believe to be insane, stands apart from the rest of society. Because Mr. Dick is not a part of the social hierarchies that bind the rest of the characters, he is able to mend the disagreement between Doctor and Mrs. Strong, which none of the other characters can fix. The kites carefree simplicity mirrors Mr. Dicks own childish innocence, and the pleasure the kite offers resembles the honest, unpretentious joy Mr. Dick brings to those around him. Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Destructiveness of a Love That Never Changes

Catherine and Heathcliffs passion for one another seems to be the center of Wuthering Heights, given that it is stronger and more lasting than any other emotion displayed in the novel, and that it is the source of most of the major conflicts that structure the novels plot. As she tells Catherine and Heathcliffs story, Nelly criticizes both of them harshly, condemning their passion as immoral, but this passion is obviously one of the most compelling and memorable aspects of the book. It is not easy to decide whether Bront intends the reader to condemn these lovers as blameworthy or to idealize them as romantic heroes whose love transcends social norms and conventional morality. The book is actually structured around two parallel love stories, the first half of the novel centering on the love between Catherine and Heathcliff, while the less dramatic second half features the developing love between young Catherine and Hareton. In contrast to the first, the latter tale ends happily, restoring peace and order to Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The differences between the two love stories contribute to the readers understanding of why each ends the way it does. The most important feature of young Catherine and Haretons love story is that it involves growth and change. Early in the novel Hareton seems irredeemably brutal, savage, and illiterate, but over time he becomes a loyal friend to young Catherine and learns to read. When young Catherine first meets Hareton he seems completely alien to her world, yet her attitude also evolves from contempt to love. Catherine and Heathcliffs love, on the other hand, is rooted in their childhood and is marked by the refusal to change. In choosing to marry Edgar, Catherine seeks a more genteel life, but she refuses to adapt to her role as wife, either by sacrificing Heathcliff or embracing Edgar. In Chapter XII she suggests to Nelly that the years since she was twelve years old and her father died have been like a blank to her, and she longs to return to the moors of her childhood. Heathcliff, for his part, possesses a seemingly superhuman ability to maintain the same attitude and to nurse the same grudges over many years. Moreover, Catherine and Heathcliffs love is based on their shared perception that they are identical. Catherine declares, famously, I am Heathcliff, while Heathcliff, upon Catherines death, wails that he cannot live without his soul, meaning Catherine. Their love denies difference, and is strangely asexual. The two do not kiss in dark corners or arrange secret trysts, as adulterers do. Given that Catherine and Heathcliffs love is based upon their refusal to change over time or embrace difference in others, it is

fitting that the disastrous problems of their generation are overcome not by some climactic reversal, but simply by the inexorable passage of time, and the rise of a new and distinct generation. Ultimately, Wuthering Heights presents a vision of life as a process of change, and celebrates this process over and against the romantic intensity of its principal characters. The Precariousness of Social Class As members of the gentry, the Earnshaws and the Lintons occupy a somewhat precarious place within the hierarchy of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British society. At the top of British society was the royalty, followed by the aristocracy, then by the gentry, and then by the lower classes, who made up the vast majority of the population. Although the gentry, or upper middle class, possessed servants and often large estates, they held a nonetheless fragile social position. The social status of aristocrats was a formal and settled matter, because aristocrats had official titles. Members of the gentry, however, held no titles, and their status was thus subject to change. A man might see himself as a gentleman but find, to his embarrassment, that his neighbors did not share this view. A discussion of whether or not a man was really a gentleman would consider such questions as how much land he owned, how many tenants and servants he had, how he spoke, whether he kept horses and a carriage, and whether his money came from land or tradegentlemen scorned banking and commercial activities. Considerations of class status often crucially inform the characters motivations in Wuthering Heights. Catherines decision to marry Edgar so that she will be the greatest woman of the neighborhood is only the most obvious example. The Lintons are relatively firm in their gentry status but nonetheless take great pains to prove this status through their behaviors. The Earnshaws, on the other hand, rest on much shakier ground socially. They do not have a carriage, they have less land, and their house, as Lockwood remarks with great puzzlement, resembles that of a homely, northern farmer and not that of a gentleman. The shifting nature of social status is demonstrated most strikingly in Heathcliffs trajectory from homeless waif to young gentleman-by-adoption to common laborer to gentleman again (although the status-conscious Lockwood remarks that Heathcliff is only a gentleman in dress and manners).

Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes. Doubles Bront organizes her novel by arranging its elementscharacters, places, and themesinto pairs. Catherine and Heathcliff are closely matched in many ways, and see themselves as identical. Catherines character is divided into two warring sides: the side that wants Edgar and the side that wants Heathcliff. Catherine and young Catherine are both remarkably similar and strikingly different. The two houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, represent opposing worlds and values. The novel has not one but two distinctly different narrators, Nelly and Mr. Lockwood. The relation between such paired elements is usually quite complicated, with the members of each pair being neither exactly alike nor diametrically opposed. For instance, the Lintons and the Earnshaws may at first seem to represent opposing sets of values, but, by the end of the novel, so many intermarriages have taken place that one can no longer distinguish between the two families. Repetition Repetition is another tactic Bront employs in organizing Wuthering Heights. It seems that nothing ever ends in the world of this novel. Instead, time seems to run in cycles, and the horrors of the past repeat themselves in the present. The way that the names of the characters are recycled, so that the names of the characters of the younger generation seem only to be rescramblings of the names of their parents, leads the reader to consider how plot elements also repeat themselves. For instance, Heathcliffs degradation of Hareton repeats Hindleys degradation of Heathcliff. Also, the young Catherines mockery of Josephs earnest evangelical zealousness repeats her mothers. Even Heathcliffs second try at opening Catherines grave repeats his first. The Conflict Between Nature and Culture In Wuthering Heights, Bront constantly plays nature and culture against each other. Nature is represented by the Earnshaw family, and by Catherine and Heathcliff in particular. These characters are governed by their passions,

not by reflection or ideals of civility. Correspondingly, the house where they liveWuthering Heightscomes to symbolize a similar wildness. On the other hand, Thrushcross Grange and the Linton family represent culture, refinement, convention, and cultivation. When, in Chapter VI, Catherine is bitten by the Lintons dog and brought into Thrushcross Grange, the two sides are brought onto the collision course that structures the majority of the novels plot. At the time of that first meeting between the Linton and Earnshaw households, chaos has already begun to erupt at Wuthering Heights, where Hindleys cruelty and injustice reign, whereas all seems to be fine and peaceful at Thrushcross Grange. However, the influence of Wuthering Heights soon proves overpowering, and the inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange are drawn into Catherine, Hindley, and Heathcliffs drama. Thus the reader almost may interpret Wuthering Heightss impact on the Linton family as an allegory for the corruption of culture by nature, creating a curious reversal of the more traditional story of the corruption of nature by culture. However, Bront tells her story in such a way as to prevent our interest and sympathy from straying too far from the wilder characters, and often portrays the more civilized characters as despicably weak and silly. This method of characterization prevents the novel from flattening out into a simple privileging of culture over nature, or vice versa. Thus in the end the reader must acknowledge that the novel is no mere allegory. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Moors The constant emphasis on landscape within the text of Wuthering Heights endows the setting with symbolic importance. This landscape is comprised primarily of moors: wide, wild expanses, high but somewhat soggy, and thus infertile. Moorland cannot be cultivated, and its uniformity makes navigation difficult. It features particularly waterlogged patches in which people could potentially drown. (This possibility is mentioned several times in Wuthering Heights.) Thus, the moors serve very well as symbols of the wild threat posed by nature. As the setting for the beginnings of Catherine and Heathcliffs bond (the two play on the moors during childhood), the moorland transfers its symbolic associations onto the love affair.

Ghosts Ghosts appear throughout Wuthering Heights, as they do in most other works of Gothic fiction, yet Bront always presents them in such a way that whether they really exist remains ambiguous. Thus the world of the novel can always be interpreted as a realistic one. Certain ghostssuch as Catherines spirit when it appears to Lockwood in Chapter IIImay be explained as nightmares. The villagers alleged sightings of Heathcliffs ghost in Chapter XXXIV could be dismissed as unverified superstition. Whether or not the ghosts are real, they symbolize the manifestation of the past within the present, and the way memory stays with people, permeating their day-to-day lives. Tess of the dUrbervillesThemes, Motifs & Symbols Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Injustice of Existence Unfairness dominates the lives of Tess and her family to such an extent that it begins to seem like a general aspect of human existence in Tess of the dUrbervilles. Tess does not mean to kill Prince, but she is punished anyway, just as she is unfairly punished for her own rape by Alec. Nor is there justice waiting in heaven. Christianity teaches that there is compensation in the afterlife for unhappiness suffered in this life, but the only devout Christian encountered in the novel may be the reverend, Mr. Clare, who seems more or less content in his life anyway. For others in their misery, Christianity offers little solace of heavenly justice. Mrs. Durbeyfield never mentions otherworldly rewards. The converted Alec preaches heavenly justice for earthly sinners, but his faith seems shallow and insincere. Generally, the moral atmosphere of the novel is not Christian justice at all, but pagan injustice. The forces that rule human life are absolutely unpredictable and not necessarily well-disposed to us. The preChristian rituals practiced by the farm workers at the opening of the novel, and Tesss final rest at Stonehenge at the end, remind us of a world where the gods are not just and fair, but whimsical and uncaring. When the narrator concludes the novel with the statement that Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals (in the Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport

with Tess, we are reminded that justice must be put in ironic quotation marks, since it is not really just at all. What passes for Justice is in fact one of the pagan gods enjoying a bit of sport, or a frivolous game. Changing Ideas of Social Class in Victorian England Tess of the dUrbervilles presents complex pictures of both the importance of social class in nineteenth-century England and the difficulty of defining class in any simple way. Certainly the Durbeyfields are a powerful emblem of the way in which class is no longer evaluated in Victorian times as it would have been in the Middle Agesthat is, by blood alone, with no attention paid to fortune or worldly success. Indubitably the Durbeyfields have purity of blood, yet for the parson and nearly everyone else in the novel, this fact amounts to nothing more than a piece of genealogical trivia. In the Victorian context, cash matters more than lineage, which explains how Simon Stokes, Alecs father, was smoothly able to use his large fortune to purchase a lustrous family name and transform his clan into the StokedUrbervilles. The dUrbervilles pass for what the Durbeyfields truly are authentic nobilitysimply because definitions of class have changed. The issue of class confusion even affects the Clare clan, whose most promising son, Angel, is intent on becoming a farmer and marrying a milkmaid, thus bypassing the traditional privileges of a Cambridge education and a parsonage. His willingness to work side by side with the farm laborers helps endear him to Tess, and their acquaintance would not have been possible if he were a more traditional and elitist aristocrat. Thus, the three main characters in the Angel-Tess-Alec triangle are all strongly marked by confusion regarding their respective social classes, an issue that is one of the main concerns of the novel. Men Dominating Women One of the recurrent themes of the novel is the way in which men can dominate women, exerting a power over them linked primarily to their maleness. Sometimes this command is purposeful, in the mans full knowledge of his exploitation, as when Alec acknowledges how bad he is for seducing Tess for his own momentary pleasure. Alecs act of abuse, the most life-altering event that Tess experiences in the novel, is clearly the most serious instance of male domination over a female. But there are other, less blatant examples of womens passivity toward dominant men. When, after Angel reveals that he prefers Tess, Tesss friend Retty attempts suicide

and her friend Marian becomes an alcoholic, which makes their earlier schoolgirl-type crushes on Angel seem disturbing. This devotion is not merely fanciful love, but unhealthy obsession. These girls appear utterly dominated by a desire for a man who, we are told explicitly, does not even realize that they are interested in him. This sort of unconscious male domination of women is perhaps even more unsettling than Alecs outward and self-conscious cruelty. Even Angels love for Tess, as pure and gentle as it seems, dominates her in an unhealthy way. Angel substitutes an idealized picture of Tesss country purity for the real-life woman that he continually refuses to get to know. When Angel calls Tess names like Daughter of Nature and Artemis, we feel that he may be denying her true self in favor of a mental image that he prefers. Thus, her identity and experiences are suppressed, albeit unknowingly. This pattern of male domination is finally reversed with Tesss murder of Alec, in which, for the first time in the novel, a woman takes active steps against a man. Of course, this act only leads to even greater suppression of a woman by men, when the crowd of male police officers arrest Tess at Stonehenge. Nevertheless, for just a moment, the accepted pattern of submissive women bowing to dominant men is interrupted, and Tesss act seems heroic. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes. Birds Images of birds recur throughout the novel, evoking or contradicting their traditional spiritual association with a higher realm of transcendence. Both the Christian dove of peace and the Romantic songbirds of Keats and Shelley, which symbolize sublime heights, lead us to expect that birds will have positive meaning in this novel. Tess occasionally hears birdcalls on her frequent hikes across the countryside; their free expressiveness stands in stark contrast to Tesss silent and constrained existence as a wronged and disgraced girl. When Tess goes to work for Mrs. dUrberville, she is surprised to find that the old womans pet finches are frequently released to fly free throughout the room. These birds offer images of hope and liberation. Yet there is irony attached to birds as well, making us doubt whether these images of hope and freedom are illusory. Mrs. dUrbervilles

birds leave little white spots on the upholstery, which presumably some servantperhaps Tess herselfwill have to clean. It may be that freedom for one creature entails hardship for another, just as Alecs free enjoyment of Tesss body leads her to a lifetime of suffering. In the end, when Tess encounters the pheasants maimed by hunters and lying in agony, birds no longer seem free, but rather oppressed and submissive. These pheasants are no Romantic songbirds hovering far above the Earththey are victims of earthly violence, condemned to suffer down below and never fly again. The Book of Genesis The Genesis story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is evoked repeatedly throughout Tess of the dUrbervilles, giving the novel a broader metaphysical and philosophical dimension. The roles of Eve and the serpent in paradise are clearly delineated: Angel is the noble Adam newly born, while Tess is the indecisive and troubled Eve. When Tess gazes upon Angel in Chapter XXVII, she regarded him as Eve at her second waking might have regarded Adam. Alec, with his open avowal that he is bad to the bone, is the conniving Satan. He seduces Tess under a tree, giving her sexual knowledge in return for her lost innocence. The very name of the forest where this seduction occurs, the Chase, suggests how Eve will be chased from Eden for her sins. This guilt, which will never be erased, is known in Christian theology as the original sin that all humans have inherited. Just as John Durbeyfield is told in Chapter I that you dont live anywhere, and his family is evicted after his death at the end of the novel, their homelessness evokes the human exile from Eden. Original sin suggests that humans have fallen from their once great status to a lower station in life, just as the dUrbervilles have devolved into the modern Durbeyfields. This Story of the Fallor of the Pure Drop, to recall the name of a pub in Tesss home villageis much more than a social fall. It is an explanation of how all of us humansnot only Tessnever quite seem to live up to our expectations, and are never able to inhabit the places of grandeur we feel we deserve. Variant Names The transformation of the dUrbervilles into the Durbeyfields is one example of the common phenomenon of renaming, or variant naming, in the novel. Names matter in this novel. Tess knows and accepts that she is a lowly Durbeyfield, but part of her still believes, as her parents also believe, that her

aristocratic original name should be restored. John Durbeyfield goes a step further than Tess, and actually renames himself Sir John, as his tombstone epitaph shows. Another character who renames himself is Simon Stokes, Angels father, who purchased a family tree and made himself Simon StokedUrberville. The question raised by all these cases of name changing, whether successful or merely imagined, is the extent to which an altered name brings with it an altered identity. Alec acts notoriously ungentlemanly throughout the novel, but by the end, when he appears at the dUrberville family vault, his lordly and commanding bearing make him seem almost deserving of the name his father has bought, like a spoiled medieval nobleman. Hardys interest in name changes makes reality itself seem changeable according to whims of human perspective. The village of Blakemore, as we are reminded twice in Chapters I and II, is also known as Blackmoor, and indeed Hardy famously renames the southern English countryside as Wessex. He imposes a fictional map on a real place, with names altered correspondingly. Reality may not be as solid as the names people confer upon it. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Prince When Tess dozes off in the wagon and loses control, the resulting death of the Durbeyfield horse, Prince, spurs Tess to seek aid from the dUrbervilles, setting the events of the novel in motion. The horses demise is thus a powerful plot motivator, and its name a potent symbol of Tesss own claims to aristocracy. Like the horse, Tess herself bears a high-class name, but is doomed to a lowly life of physical labor. Interestingly, Princes death occurs right after Tess dreams of ancient knights, having just heard the news that her family is aristocratic. Moreover, the horse is pierced by the forwardjutting piece of metal on a mail coach, which is reminiscent of a wound one might receive in a medieval joust. In an odd way, Tesss dream of medieval glory comes true, and her horse dies a heroic death. Yet her dream of meeting a prince while she kills her own Prince, and with him her familys only means of financial sustenance, is a tragic foreshadowing of her own story. The death of the horse symbolizes the sacrifice of real-world goods, such as a useful animal or even her own honor, through excessive fantasizing about a better world.

The dUrberville Family Vault A double-edged symbol of both the majestic grandeur and the lifeless hollowness of the aristocratic family name that the Durbeyfields learn they possess, the dUrberville family vault represents both the glory of life and the end of life. Since Tess herself moves from passivity to active murder by the end of the novel, attaining a kind of personal grandeur even as she brings death to others and to herself, the double symbolism of the vault makes it a powerful site for the culminating meeting between Alec and Tess. Alec brings Tess both his lofty name and, indirectly, her own death later; it is natural that he meets her in the vault in dUrberville Aisle, where she reads her own name inscribed in stone and feels the presence of death. Yet the vault that sounds so glamorous when rhapsodized over by John Durbeyfield in Chapter I seems, by the end, strangely hollow and meaningless. When Alec stomps on the floor of the vault, it produces only a hollow echo, as if its basic emptiness is a complement to its visual grandeur. When Tess is executed, her ancestors are said to snooze on in their crypts, as if uncaring even about the fate of a member of their own majestic family. Perhaps the secret of the family crypt is that its grandiosity is ultimately meaningless. Brazil Rather surprising for a novel that seems set so solidly in rural England, the narration shifts very briefly to Brazil when Angel takes leave of Tess and heads off to establish a career in farming. Even more exotic for a Victorian English reader than America or Australia, Brazil is the country in which Robinson Crusoe made his fortune and it seems to promise a better life far from the humdrum familiar world. Brazil is thus more than a geographical entity on the map in this novel: it symbolizes a fantasyland, a place where dreams come true. As Angels name suggests, he is a lofty visionary who lacks some experience with the real world, despite all his mechanical knowhow in farm management. He may be able to milk cows, but he does not yet know how to tell the difference between an exotic dream and an everyday reality, so inevitably his experience in the imagined dream world of Brazil is a disaster that he barely survives. His fiasco teaches him that ideals do not exist in life, and this lesson helps him reevaluate his disappointment with Tesss imperfections, her failure to incarnate the ideal he expected her to be. For Angel, Brazil symbolizes the impossibility of ideals, but also forgiveness and acceptance of life in spite of those disappointed ideals.

The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Purpose of Art When The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in Lippincotts Monthly Magazine in 1890, it was decried as immoral. In revising the text the following year, Wilde included a preface, which serves as a useful explanation of his philosophy of art. The purpose of art, according to this series of epigrams, is to have no purpose. In order to understand this claim fully, one needs to consider the moral climate of Wildes time and the Victorian sensibility regarding art and morality. The Victorians believed that art could be used as a tool for social education and moral enlightenment, as illustrated in works by writers such as Charles Dickens and George Gissing. The aestheticism movement, of which Wilde was a major proponent, sought to free art from this responsibility. The aestheticists were motivated as much by a contempt for bourgeois moralitya sensibility embodied in Dorian Gray by Lord Henry, whose every word seems designed to shock the ethical certainties of the burgeoning middle classas they were by the belief that art need not possess any other purpose than being beautiful.

If this philosophy informed Wildes life, we must then consider whether his only novel bears it out. The two works of art that dominate the novel Basils painting and the mysterious yellow book that Lord Henry gives Dorianare presented in the vein more of Victorian sensibilities than of aesthetic ones. That is, both the portrait and the French novel serve a purpose: the first acts as a type of mysterious mirror that shows Dorian the physical dissipation his own body has been spared, while the second acts as something of a road map, leading the young man farther along the path toward infamy. While we know nothing of the circumstances of the yellow books composition, Basils state of mind while painting Dorians portrait is clear. Later in the novel, he advocates that all art be unconscious, ideal, and

remote. His portrait of Dorian, however, is anything but. Thus, Basils initial refusal to exhibit the work results from his belief that it betrays his idolization of his subject. Of course, one might consider that these breaches of aesthetic philosophy mold The Picture of Dorian Gray into something of a cautionary tale: these are the prices that must be paid for insisting that art reveals the artist or a moral lesson. But this warning is, in itself, a moral lesson, which perhaps betrays the impossibility of Wildes project. If, as Dorian observes late in the novel, the imagination orders the chaos of life and invests it with meaning, then art, as the fruit of the imagination, cannot help but mean something. Wilde may have succeeded in freeing his art from the confines of Victorian morality, but he has replaced it with a doctrine that is, in its own way, just as restrictive. The Supremacy of Youth and Beauty The first principle of aestheticism, the philosophy of art by which Oscar Wilde lived, is that art serves no other purpose than to offer beauty. Throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, beauty reigns. It is a means to revitalize the wearied senses, as indicated by the effect that Basils painting has on the cynical Lord Henry. It is also a means of escaping the brutalities of the world: Dorian distances himself, not to mention his consciousness, from the horrors of his actions by devoting himself to the study of beautiful thingsmusic, jewels, rare tapestries. In a society that prizes beauty so highly, youth and physical attractiveness become valuable commodities. Lord Henry reminds Dorian of as much upon their first meeting, when he laments that Dorian will soon enough lose his most precious attributes. In Chapter Seventeen, the Duchess of Monmouth suggests to Lord Henry that he places too much value on these things; indeed, Dorians eventual demise confirms her suspicions. For although beauty and youth remain of utmost importance at the end of the novelthe portrait is, after all, returned to its original formthe novel suggests that the price one must pay for them is exceedingly high. Indeed, Dorian gives nothing less than his soul. The Superficial Nature of Society It is no surprise that a society that prizes beauty above all else is a society founded on a love of surfaces. What matters most to Dorian, Lord Henry, and the polite company they keep is not whether a man is good at heart but rather whether he is handsome. As Dorian evolves into the realization of a type, the perfect blend of scholar and socialite, he experiences the freedom

to abandon his morals without censure. Indeed, even though, as Basil warns, societys elite question his name and reputation, Dorian is never ostracized. On the contrary, despite his mode of life, he remains at the heart of the London social scene because of the innocence and purity of his face. As Lady Narborough notes to Dorian, there is little (if any) distinction between ethics and appearance: you are made to be goodyou look so good. The Negative Consequences of Influence The painting and the yellow book have a profound effect on Dorian, influencing him to predominantly immoral behavior over the course of nearly two decades. Reflecting on Dorians power over Basil and deciding that he would like to seduce Dorian in much the same way, Lord Henry points out that there is something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. Falling under the sway of such influence is, perhaps, unavoidable, but the novel ultimately censures the sacrifice of ones self to another. Basils idolatry of Dorian leads to his murder, and Dorians devotion to Lord Henrys hedonism and the yellow book precipitate his own downfall. It is little wonder, in a novel that prizes individualismthe uncompromised expression of selfthat the sacrifice of ones self, whether it be to another person or to a work of art, leads to ones destruction. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes. The Picture of Dorian Gray The picture of Dorian Gray, the most magical of mirrors, shows Dorian the physical burdens of age and sin from which he has been spared. For a time, Dorian sets his conscience aside and lives his life according to a single goal: achieving pleasure. His painted image, however, asserts itself as his conscience and hounds him with the knowledge of his crimes: there he sees the cruelty he showed to Sibyl Vane and the blood he spilled killing Basil Hallward. Homoerotic Male Relationships

The homoerotic bonds between men play a large role in structuring the novel. Basils painting depends upon his adoration of Dorians beauty; similarly, Lord Henry is overcome with the desire to seduce Dorian and mold him into the realization of a type. This camaraderie between men fits into Wildes larger aesthetic values, for it returns him to antiquity, where an appreciation of youth and beauty was not only fundamental to culture but was also expressed as a physical relationship between men. As a homosexual living in an intolerant society, Wilde asserted this philosophy partially in an attempt to justify his own lifestyle. For Wilde, homosexuality was not a sordid vice but rather a sign of refined culture. As he claimed rather romantically during his trial for gross indecency between men, the affection between an older and younger man places one in the tradition of Plato, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare. The Color White Interestingly, Dorians trajectory from figure of innocence to figure of degradation can be charted by Wildes use of the color white. White usually connotes innocence and blankness, as it does when Dorian is first introduced. It is, in fact, the white purity of Dorians boyhood that Lord Henry finds so captivating. Basil invokes whiteness when he learns that Dorian has sacrificed his innocence, and, as the artist stares in horror at the ruined portrait, he quotes a biblical verse from the Book of Isaiah: Though your sins be as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow. But the days of Dorians innocence are over. It is a quality he now eschews, and, tellingly, when he orders flowers, he demands as few white ones as possible. When the color appears again, in the form of James Vanes face like a white handkerchiefpeering in through a window, it has been transformed from the color of innocence to the color of death. It is this threatening pall that makes Dorian long, at the novels end, for his rosewhite boyhood, but the hope is in vain, and he proves unable to wash away the stains of his sins. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. The Opium Dens

The opium dens, located in a remote and derelict section of London, represent the sordid state of Dorians mind. He flees to them at a crucial moment. After killing Basil, Dorian seeks to forget the awfulness of his crimes by losing consciousness in a drug-induced stupor. Although he has a canister of opium in his home, he leaves the safety of his neat and proper parlor to travel to the dark dens that reflect the degradation of his soul. James Vane James Vane is less a believable character than an embodiment of Dorians tortured conscience. As Sibyls brother, he is a rather flat caricature of the avenging relative. Still, Wilde saw him as essential to the story, adding his character during his revision of 1891. Appearing at the dock and later at Dorians country estate, James has an almost spectral quality. Like the ghost of Jacob Marley in Charles Dickenss A Christmas Carol, who warns Scrooge of the sins he will have to face, James appears with his face like a white handkerchief to goad Dorian into accepting responsibility for the crimes he has committed. The Yellow Book Lord Henry gives Dorian a copy of the yellow book as a gift. Although he never gives the title, Wilde describes the book as a French novel that charts the outrageous experiences of its pleasure-seeking protagonist (we can fairly assume that the book in question is Joris-Karl Huysmans decadent nineteenth-century novel Rebours, translated as Against the Grain or Against Nature). The book becomes like holy scripture to Dorian, who buys nearly a dozen copies and bases his life and actions on it. The book represents the profound and damaging influence that art can have over an individual and serves as a warning to those who would surrender themselves so completely to such an influence. Tennysons Poetry Alfred Lord TennysonThemes, Motifs and Symbols Themes The Reconciliation of Religion and Science

Tennyson lived during a period of great scientific advancement, and he used his poetry to work out the conflict between religious faith and scientific discoveries. Notable scientific findings and theories of the Victorian period include stratigraphy, the geological study of rock layers used to date the earth, in 1811; the first sighting of an asteroid in 1801 and galaxies in the 1840s; and Darwins theory of evolution and natural selection in 1859. In the second half of the century, scientists, such as Flp Semmelweis, Joseph Lister, and Louis Pasteur, began the experiments and work that would eventually lead to germ theory and our modern understanding of microorganisms and diseases. These discoveries challenged traditional religious understandings of nature and natural history.

For most of his career, Tennyson was deeply interested in and troubled by these discoveries. His poem Locksley Hall (1842) expresses his ambivalence about technology and scientific progress. There the speaker feels tempted to abandon modern civilization and return to a savage life in the jungle. In the end, he chooses to live a civilized, modern life and enthusiastically endorses technology. In Memoriam connects the despair Tennyson felt over the loss of his friend Arthur Hallam and the despair he felt when contemplating a godless world. In the end, the poem affirms both religious faith and faith in human progress. Nevertheless, Tennyson continued to struggle with the reconciliation of science and religion, as illustrated by some of his later work. For example, Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886) takes as its protagonist the speaker from the original Locksley Hall, but now he is an old man, who looks back on his youthful optimism and faith in progress with scorn and skepticism. The Virtues of Perseverance and Optimism After the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, Tennyson struggled through a period of deep despair, which he eventually overcame to begin writing again. During his time of mourning, Tennyson rarely wrote and, for many years, battled alcoholism. Many of his poems are about the temptation to give up and fall prey to pessimism, but they also extol the virtues of optimism and discuss the importance of struggling on with life. The need to persevere and continue is the central theme of In Memoriam and Ulysses (1833), both written after Hallams death. Perhaps because of Tennysons gloomy and tragic childhood, perseverance and optimism also appear in

poetry written before Hallams death, such as The Lotos-Eaters (1832, 1842). Poems such as The Lady of Shalott (1832, 1842) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) also vary this theme: both poems glorify characters who embrace their destinies in life, even though those destinies end in tragic death. The Lady of Shalott leaves her seclusion to meet the outer world, determined to seek the love that is missing in her life. The cavalrymen in The Charge of the Light Brigade keep charging through the valley toward the Russian cannons; they persevere even as they realize that they will likely die. The Glory of England Tennyson used his poetry to express his love for England. Although he expressed worry and concern about the corruption that so dominated the nineteenth century, he also wrote many poems that glorify nineteenthcentury England. The Charge of the Light Brigade praises the fortitude and courage of English soldiers during a battle of the Crimean War in which roughly 200 men were killed. As poet laureate, Tennyson was required to write poems for specific state occasions and to dedicate verse to Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. Nevertheless, Tennyson praised England even when not specifically required to do so. In the Idylls of the King, Tennyson glorified England by encouraging a collective English cultural identity: all of England could take pride in Camelot, particularly the chivalrous and capable knights who lived there. Indeed, the modern conception of Camelot as the source of loyalty, chivalry, and romance comes, in part, from Tennysons descriptions of it in the Idylls of the King and The Lady of Shalott. Motifs Tragic Death Early, tragic death and suicide appear throughout Tennysons poetry. Perhaps the most significant event of his life was the untimely death of his best friend Arthur Hallam at age twenty-two, which prompted Tennyson to write his greatest literary work, In Memoriam. This long poem uses the socalled In Memoriam stanza, or a quatrain that uses iambic tetrameter and has an abba rhyme scheme. The formal consistency expresses Tennysons grief and links the disparate stanzas together into an elegiac whole. The speaker of Break, Break, Break (1834) sees death even in sunsets, while the early Mariana (1830) features a woman who longs for death after her

lover abandons her. Each of that poems seven stanzas ends with the line I would that I were dead. The lady in The Lady of Shalott brings about her own death by going out into an autumn storm dressed only in a thin white dress. Similarly, the cavalrymen in The Charge of the Light Brigade ride to their deaths by charging headlong into the Russian cannons. These poems lyrically mourn those who died tragically, often finding nobility in their characters or their deaths. Scientific Language Tennyson took a great interest in the scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century, and his poetry manifests this interest in its reliance on scientific language. The Kraken (1830), which describes an ancient, slumbering sea beast, mentions a cell (8) and polypi (9). Section 21 of In Memoriam alludes to the 1846 discovery of Neptune. There, a traveler tells the speaker not to grieve for his friend. Rather than grieve, the traveler says, the speaker should rejoice in the marvelous possibilities of science. Section 120, in contrast, features the speaker wondering what good science might do in a world full of religious doubt and despair. Other poems praise technological discoveries and inventions, including the steamships and railways discussed in Locksley Hall, or mention specific plants and flowers, as does The Lotos-Eaters (1832, 1842). Taking metaphors and poetic diction from science allowed Tennyson to connect to his age and to modernize his sometimes antiquarian language and archaic verse forms. The Ancient World

Like the romantic poets who preceded him, Tennyson found much inspiration in the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome. In poems such as The Lotos-Eaters and Ulysses, Tennyson retells the stories of Dante and Homer, which described the characters of Ulysses, Telemachus, and Penelope and their adventures in the ancient world. However, Tennyson slightly alters these mythic stories, shifting the time frame of some of the action and often adding more descriptive imagery to the plot. For instance, Ulysses, a dramatic monologue spoken by Homers hero, urges readers to carry on and persevere rather than to give up and retire. Elsewhere Tennyson channels the voice of Tithonus, a legendary prince from Troy, in the eponymous poem Tithonus (1833, 1859). He praises the ancient poet Virgil in his ode To Virgil (1882), commenting on Virgils choice of

subject matter and lauding his ability to chronicle human history in meter. Tennyson mined the ancient world to find stories that would simultaneously enthrall and inspire his readers. Symbols King Arthur and Camelot To Tennyson, King Arthur symbolizes the ideal man, and Arthurian England was England in its best and purest form. Some of Tennysons earliest poems, such as The Lady of Shalott, were set in King Arthurs time. Indeed, Tennyson rhymes Camelot, the name of King Arthurs estate, with Shalott in eighteen of the poems twenty stanzas, thereby emphasizing the importance of the mythical place. Furthermore, our contemporary conception of Camelot as harmonious and magnificent comes from Tennysons poem. Idylls of the King, about King Arthurs rise and fall, was one of the major projects of Tennysons late career. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert envisioned themselves as latter-day descendents of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and their praise helped popularize the long poem. But King Arthur also had a more personal representation to Tennyson: the mythic king represents a version of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, whose death at twenty-two profoundly affected Tennyson. Hallams death destroyed his potential and promise, which allowed Tennyson to idealize Hallam. This idealization allows Tennyson to imagine what might have been in the best possible light, much as he does when describing King Arthur and his court. The Imprisoned Woman The imprisoned woman appears throughout Tennysons work. In Mariana, a woman abandoned by her lover lives alone in her house in the middle of desolate country; her isolation imprisons her, as does the way she waits for her lover to return. Her waiting limits her ability and desire to do anything else. The Lady of Shalott is likewise about a woman imprisoned, this time in a tower. Should she leave her prison, a curse would fall upon her. Tennyson, like many other Victorian poets, used female characters to symbolize the artistic and sensitive aspects of the human condition. Imprisoned women, such as these Tennyson characters, act as symbols for the isolation experienced by the artist and other sensitive, deep-feeling people. Although society might force creative, sensitive types to become outcasts, in Tennysons poems, the women themselves create their own

isolation and imprisonment. These women seem unable or unwilling to deal with the outside world. Ulysses Complete Text It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matchd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoyd Greatly, have sufferd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honourd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro Gleams that untravelld world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnishd, not to shine in use! As tho to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle, Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toild, and wrought, and thought with me That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheadsyou and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho much is taken, much abides; and tho We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Summary Ulysses (Odysseus) declares that there is little point in his staying home by this still hearth with his old wife, doling out rewards and punishments for the unnamed masses who live in his kingdom.

Still speaking to himself he proclaims that he cannot rest from travel but feels compelled to live to the fullest and swallow every last drop of life. He has enjoyed all his experiences as a sailor who travels the seas, and he considers himself a symbol for everyone who wanders and roams the earth. His travels have exposed him to many different types of people and ways of living. They have also exposed him to the delight of battle while fighting the Trojan War with his men. Ulysses declares that his travels and encounters have shaped who he is: I am a part of all that I have met, he asserts. And it is only when he is traveling that the margin of the globe that he has not yet traversed shrink and fade, and cease to goad him. Ulysses declares that it is boring to stay in one place, and that to remain stationary is to rust rather than to shine; to stay in one place is to pretend that all there is to life is the simple act of breathing, whereas he knows that in fact life contains much novelty, and he longs to encounter this. His spirit yearns constantly for new experiences that will broaden his horizons; he wishes to follow knowledge like a sinking star and forever grow in wisdom and in learning. Ulysses now speaks to an unidentified audience concerning his son Telemachus, who will act as his successor while the great hero resumes his travels: he says, This is my son, mine own Telemachus, to whom I leave the scepter and the isle. He speaks highly but also patronizingly of his sons capabilities as a ruler, praising his prudence, dedication, and devotion to the gods. Telemachus will do his work of governing the island while Ulysses will do his work of traveling the seas: He works his work, I mine. In the final stanza, Ulysses addresses the mariners with whom he has worked, traveled, and weathered lifes storms over many years. He declares that although he and they are old, they still have the potential to do something noble and honorable before the long day wanes. He encourages them to make use of their old age because tis not too late to seek a newer world. He declares that his goal is to sail onward beyond the sunset until

his death. Perhaps, he suggests, they may even reach the Happy Isles, or the paradise of perpetual summer described in Greek mythology where great heroes like the warrior Achilles were believed to have been taken after their deaths. Although Ulysses and his mariners are not as strong as they were in youth, they are strong in will and are sustained by their resolve to push onward relentlessly: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Form This poem is written as a dramatic monologue: the entire poem is spoken by a single character, whose identity is revealed by his own words. The lines are in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter, which serves to impart a fluid and natural quality to Ulyssess speech. Many of the lines are enjambed, which means that a thought does not end with the line-break; the sentences often end in the middle, rather than the end, of the lines. The use of enjambment is appropriate in a poem about pushing forward beyond the utmost bound of human thought. Finally, the poem is divided into four paragraph-like sections, each of which comprises a distinct thematic unit of the poem. Commentary

In this poem, written in 1833 and revised for publication in 1842, Tennyson reworks the figure of Ulysses by drawing on the ancient hero of Homers Odyssey (Ulysses is the Roman form of the Greek Odysseus) and the medieval hero of Dantes Inferno. Homers Ulysses, as described in Scroll XI of the Odyssey, learns from a prophecy that he will take a final sea voyage after killing the suitors of his wife Penelope. The details of this sea voyage are described by Dante in Canto XXVI of the Inferno: Ulysses finds himself restless in Ithaca and driven by the longing I had to gain experience of the world. Dantes Ulysses is a tragic figure who dies while sailing too far in an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Tennyson combines these two accounts by having Ulysses make his speech shortly after returning to Ithaca and resuming his administrative responsibilities, and shortly before embarking on his final voyage. However, this poem also concerns the poets own personal journey, for it was composed in the first few weeks after Tennyson learned of the death of his dear college friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833. Like In Memoriam,

then, this poem is also an elegy for a deeply cherished friend. Ulysses, who symbolizes the grieving poet, proclaims his resolution to push onward in spite of the awareness that death closes all (line 51). As Tennyson himself stated, the poem expresses his own need of going forward and braving the struggle of life after the loss of his beloved Hallam. The poems final line, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield, came to serve as a motto for the poets Victorian contemporaries: the poems hero longs to flee the tedium of daily life among these barren crags (line 2) and to enter a mythical dimension beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars (lines 6061); as such, he was a model of individual selfassertion and the Romantic rebellion against bourgeois conformity. Thus for Tennysons immediate audience, the figure of Ulysses held not only mythological meaning, but stood as an important contemporary cultural icon as well. Ulysses, like many of Tennysons other poems, deals with the desire to reach beyond the limits of ones field of vision and the mundane details of everyday life. Ulysses is the antithesis of the mariners in The LotosEaters, who proclaim we will no longer roam and desire only to relax amidst the Lotos fields. In contrast, Ulysses cannot rest from travel and longs to roam the globe (line 6). Like the Lady of Shallot, who longs for the worldly experiences she has been denied, Ulysses hungers to explore the untraveled world. As in all dramatic monologues, here the character of the speaker emerges almost unintentionally from his own words. Ulysses incompetence as a ruler is evidenced by his preference for potential quests rather than his present responsibilities. He devotes a full 26 lines to his own egotistical proclamation of his zeal for the wandering life, and another 26 lines to the exhortation of his mariners to roam the seas with him. However, he offers only 11 lines of lukewarm praise to his son concerning the governance of the kingdom in his absence, and a mere two words about his aged wife Penelope. Thus, the speakers own words betray his abdication of responsibility and his specificity of purpose. Tithonius

Summary The woods in the forests grow old and their leaves fall to the ground. Man is born, works the earth, and then dies and is buried underground. Yet the speaker, Tithonus, is cursed to live forever. Tithonus tells Aurora, goddess of the dawn, that he grows old slowly in her arms like a white-haird shadow roaming in the east. Tithonus laments that while he is now a gray shadow he was once a beautiful man chosen as Auroras lover. He remembers that he long ago asked Aurora to grant him eternal life: Give me immortality! Aurora granted his wish generously, like a rich philanthropist who has so much money that he gives charity without thinking twice. However, the Hours, the goddesses who accompany Aurora, were angry that Tithonus was able to resist death, so they took their revenge by battering him until he grew old and withered. Now, though he cannot die, he remains forever old; and he must dwell in the presence of Aurora, who renews herself each morning and is thus forever young. Tithonus appeals to Aurora to take back the gift of immortality while the silver star of Venus rises in the morning. He now realizes the ruin in desiring to be different from all the rest of mankind and in living beyond the goal of ordinance, the normal human lifespan. Just before the sun rises, Tithonus catches sight of the dark world where he was born a mortal. He witnesses the coming of Aurora, the dawn: her cheek begins to turn red and her eyes grow so bright that they overpower the light of the stars. Auroras team of horses awakes and converts the twilight into fire. The poet now addresses Aurora, telling her that she always grows beautiful and then leaves before she can answer his request. He questions why she must scare him with her tearful look of silent regret; her look makes him fear that an old saying might be truethat The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts. Tithonus sighs and remembers his youth long ago, when he would watch the arrival of the dawn and feel his whole body come alive as he lay down and enjoyed the kisses of another. This lover from his youth used to whisper to him wild and sweet melodies, like the music of Apollos lyre, which accompanied the construction of Ilion (Troy). Tithonus asks Aurora not to keep him imprisoned in the east where she rises anew each morning, because his eternal old age contrasts so painfully with

her eternal renewal. He cringes cold and wrinkled, whereas she rises each morning to warm happy men that have the power to die and men who are already dead in their burial mounds (grassy barrows). Tithonus asks Aurora to release him and let him die. This way, she can see his grave when she rises and he, buried in the earth, will be able to forget the emptiness of his present state, and her return on silver wheels that stings him each morning. Form This poem is a dramatic monologue: the entire text is spoken by a single character whose words reveal his identity. The lines take the form of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). The poem as a whole falls into seven paragraph-like sections of varying length, each of which forms a thematic unit unto itself. Commentary Like Ulysses, Tithonus is a figure from Greek mythology whom Tennyson takes as a speaker in one of his dramatic monologues (see the section on Ulysses). According to myth, Tithonus is the brother of Priam, King of Troy, and was loved by Aurora, the immortal goddess of the dawn, who had a habit of carrying off the beautiful young men whom she fancied. Aurora abducted Tithonus and asked Zeus to grant him immortality, which Zeus did. However, she forgot to ask that he also grant eternal youth, so Tithonus soon became a decrepit old man who could not die. Aurora finally transformed him into a grasshopper to relieve him of his sad existence. In this poem, Tennyson slightly alters the mythological story: here, it is Tithonus, not Aurora, who asks for immortality, and it is Aurora, not Zeus, who confers this gift upon him. The source of suffering in the poem is not Auroras forgetfulness in formulating her request to Zeus, but rather the goddesses referred to as strong Hours who resent Tithonuss immortality and subject him to the ravages of time. Tennyson wrote the first version of this poem as Tithon in 1833, and then completed the final version for publication in 1859 in the Cornhill Magazine edited by William Makepeace Thackeray. The 1833 version contained several significant differences from the version we know today: the poem began not with a repetition but with the lament Ay me! ay me! The woods decay and fall; the swan, which here dies after many summers was not a

swan but a rose; and immortality was described as fatal rather than cruel. The 1833 poem was initially conceived as a pendant, or companion poem, to Ulysses. Ulysses alludes to the danger that fulfillment may bringIt may be that the gulfs will wash us down; Tithonus represents the realization of this danger. For the character of Tithonus achieves that which Ulysses longs for and finds himself bitterly disappointed: Ulysses wanted to sail beyond the sunset because he sensed how dull it is to pause; Tithonus, in contrast, questions why any man should want to pass beyond the goal of ordinance where all should pause (lines 30-31). Tithonus thus serves as an appropriate thematic follow-up to Ulysses. This poem was one of a set of four works (also including Morte dArthur, Ulysses, and Tiresias) that Tennyson wrote shortly after Arthur Henry Hallams death in 1833. Whereas Hallam was granted youth without immortality, Tithonus is granted immortality without youth. Tennyson developed the idea for a poem about these themes of age and mortality after hearing a remark by Emily Sellwood, Tennysons fiance: Sellwood lamented that unlike the Hallams, None of the Tennysons ever die. Appropriately, in depicting the futility of eternal life without youth, Tennyson drew upon a timeless figure: the figure of Tithonus is eternally old because he lives on forever as an old man in the popular imagination. What are the major differences between Victorian and Modernist literature? The main difference between Victorian and Modern literature is what Hegel referred to as "The onward march of human progress". The Victorians believed that humanity was headed toward a... The Mill on the Floss: Introduction The Mill on the Floss, published in 1860, is based partially on Eliot's own experiences with her family and her brother Isaac, who was three years older than Eliot. Eliot's father, like Mr. Tulliver in the novel, was a businessman who had married a woman from a higher social class, whose sisters were rich, ultra-respectable, and self-satisfied; these maternal aunts provided the character models for the aunts in the novel. Like Maggie, Eliot was disorderly and energetic and did not fit traditional models of feminine beauty or behavior, causing her family a great deal of consternation.

By the time Eliot published The Mill on the Floss, she had gained considerable notoriety as an "immoral woman" because she was living with the writer George Henry Lewes, who was married, though separated from his wife. Social disapproval of her actions spilled over into commentary on the novel, and it was scathingly criticized because it did not present a clear drama of right and wrong. Perhaps the most offended reader was Eliot's brother Isaac, who was very close to her in childhood but who had become estranged from her when he found out about her life with Lewes; he communicated with her only through his lawyer. In the book, Eliot drew on her own experiences with a once-beloved but rigid and controlling brother to depict the relationship between Maggie and her brother Tom. The Mill on the Floss Summary Book 1: Boy and Girl The novel begins with a description of the rural area where the action takes place, near the town of St. Ogg's and the River Floss. The narrator reminisces about a February many years ago and begins to tell the story of the Tulliver family. Mr. Tulliver, who is the fifth generation in his family to own and run Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss, tells his wife that he will send his son Tom to a school where Tom can learn to be an "engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneeror one of them smartish businesses as are all profit and no outlay." His wife advises him to ask her wealthier sisters and their husbands for their opinion, but Tulliver says he will do whatever he wants. However, he does decide to ask Mr. Riley, an auctioneer, who is somewhat educated, for his opinion. The two parents discuss their other child, Maggie, who takes after her father. She is as dark as Tom is fair and is clever but headstrong, uninterested in her appearance and in social niceties. True to her nature, Maggie comes to tea late with her hair mussed up, and when her mother urges her to do patchwork, she refuses. Her mother is bothered by the fact that Maggie is nothing like her and by the fact that she is much smarter than a woman "should" be. Riley visits Tulliver, who says that he wants Tom to have an education but that it should be in a different field from his own, as he does not want Tom to grow up and take the mill away from him. Maggie, hearing this, is quick to defend Tom, and she distractedly drops the book she has been reading, The History of the Devil, a surprising choice for a young girl. Tulliver

explains to Riley that he bought the book without knowing what it was about, because it had an interesting cover. Maggie discusses the book with them, but when she begins to discuss the devil, Tulliver tells her to leave the room. He tells Riley that she is too smart for a womanunlike her mother, who is not noted for her intelligence. He tells Riley that he chose her as a wife for this very reason. Riley advises Tulliver to send Tom to the son-in-law of a businessman he knows. This teacher is Reverend Walter Stelling; Riley offers to contact Stelling for Tulliver and says that Stelling can teach Tom anything he needs to know. Tom is coming home from his current school, but Maggie is not allowed to go out and meet him. Angered, she dunks her freshly brushed hair in water and then beats up a doll she keeps in the attic. Bored, she heads out to talk to Luke, the miller. He is not interested in her clever talk and reminds her that she has forgotten to feed and water Tom's rabbits while he was gone, and they have all died. This upsets her, but she forgets about it when Luke invites her to visit his wife. They have an illustration of the biblical parable of the Prodigal Son in their home, and she is fascinated with it and happy that his father... Complete The Mill on the Floss Summary In an 1860 issue of the Saturday Review, a reviewer commented that The Mill on the Floss, in comparison to Eliot's earlier novel Adam Bede, "shows no falling off nor any exhaustion of power." The reviewer also compared Eliot's "minuteness of painting and a certain archness of style" to the work of Jane Austen and the "wide scope of her remarks, and her delight in depicting strong and wayward feelings" to the work of Charlotte Bront. According to this reviewer, Eliot's greatest achievement in the novel is that "for the first time in fiction, [she has] invented or... Early novels in English A number of works of literature have each been claimed as the first novel in English. See the article First novel in English. Romantic novel The Romantic period saw the first flowering of the English novel. The Romantic and the Gothic novel are closely related; both imagined almostsupernatural forces operating in nature or directing human fate. Just as

William Wordsworth and other poets were integral to the growth of English Romanticism, so Mary Shelley, and Ann Radcliffe were key to the sudden popularity of the Gothic novel. Horace Walpole's 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto, invented the Gothic fiction genre, combining elements of horror and romance. The pioneering Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe introduced the brooding figure of the Gothic villain which developed into the Byronic hero. Her most popular and influential work, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), is frequently cited as the archetypal Gothic novel. Vathek (1786), by William Beckford, and The Monk (1796), by Matthew Lewis, were further notable early works in both the Gothic and horror literary genres. Mary Shelley is best known for her novel Frankenstein (1818), infusing elements of the Gothic novel and Romantic movement. Frankenstein's chilling tale suggests modern organ transplants and tissue regeneration, reminding readers of the moral issues raised by today's medicine. For many years, novels were considered light reading for young, single women. Novels written for this audience were often heavily didactic and, like earlier English literature, attempted to provide examples of correct conduct. The English novel developed during the 18th century, partly in response to an expansion of the middle-class reading public. One of the major early works in this genre was the seminal castaway novel Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. The 18th century novel tended to be loosely structured and semi-comic. Henry Fielding's Tom Jones is considered a comic masterpiece. Samuel Richardson is known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748), and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753). Novelists from the mid to late 18th century include Laurence Sterne, Samuel Johnson, and Tobias Smollett, who influenced Charles Dickens.[1] Jane Austen wrote highly polished novels about the life of the landed gentry, seen from a woman's point of view, and wryly focused on practical social issues, especially marriage and money. Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) is often considered the epitome of the romance genre, and some of her other works include; Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Persuasion and Emma.

Sir Walter Scott popularized the historical novel with his series of "Waverley Novels", including The Antiquary, Ivanhoe, and The Heart of Midlothian. John William Polidori wrote "The Vampyre" (1819), creating the literary vampire genre. His short story was inspired by the life of Lord Byron and his poem The Giaour. Another major influence on vampire fiction is Varney the Vampire (1845), where many standard vampire conventions originated Varney has fangs, leaves two puncture wounds on the neck of his victims, and has hypnotic powers and superhuman strength. Varney was also the first example of the "sympathetic vampire", who loathes his condition but is a slave to it.[2] From the mid-1820s until the 1840s, romans clef, fashionable novels depicting the lives of the upper class in an indiscreet manner, identifying the real people on whom the characters were based, dominated the market. Victorian novel It was in the Victorian era (18371901) that the novel became the leading form of literature in English. Most writers were now more concerned to meet the tastes of a large middle class reading public than to please aristocratic patrons. The 1830s saw a resurgence of the social novel, where sensationalized accounts and stories of the working class poor were directed toward middle class audiences to incite sympathy and action towards pushing for legal and moral change. Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South contrasts the lifestyle in the industrial north of England with the wealthier south. Most Victorian novels were long and closely wrought, full of intricate language, but the dominant feature of Victorian novels might be their verisimilitude, that is, their close representation to the real social life of the age. This social life was largely informed by the development of the emerging middle class and the manners and expectations of this class, as opposed to the aristocrat forms dominating previous ages. Charles Dickens emerged on the literary scene in the 1830s, confirming the trend for serial publication. Dickens wrote vividly about London life and struggles of the poor, in books such as Oliver Twist, but in a good-humoured fashion, accessible to readers of all classes. The festive tale A Christmas Carol he called his "little Christmas book". Great Expectations is a quest for

maturity. A Tale of Two Cities is set in London and Paris in the time of the French Revolution. Dickens' early works are masterpieces of comedy, such as The Pickwick Papers. Later his works became darker, but continued to display his genius for caricature. The emotionally powerful works of the Bront sisters: Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights, and Anne's Agnes Grey were released in 1847 after their search to secure publishers. William Makepeace Thackeray satirised British society in Vanity Fair (1847), while Anthony Trollope's novels portrayed the lives of the landowning and professional classes of early Victorian England. Although pre-dated by John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River in 1841, the history of the modern fantasy genre is generally said to begin with George MacDonald, influential author of The Princess and the Goblin and Phantastes (1858). William Morris was a popular English poet who wrote several fantasy novels during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Key to Victorian style is the concept of the intrusive narrator and the address to the reader. For example, the author might interrupt his/her narrative to pass judgment on a character, or pity or praise another, while later seeming to exclaim "Dear Reader!" and inform or remind the reader of some other relevant issue. Wilkie Collins' epistolary novel The Moonstone (1868), is generally considered the first detective novel in the English language. The Woman in White is regarded as one of the finest sensation novels. The novels of George Eliot, such as Middlemarch, were a milestone of literary realism, and are frequently held in the highest regard for their combination of high Victorian literary detail combined with an intellectual breadth that removes them from the narrow geographic confines they often depict. An interest in rural matters and the changing social and economic situation of the countryside is seen in the novels of Thomas Hardy and others. H. G. Wells, who, like Jules Verne, has been referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction", invented a number of themes that are now classic in the science fiction genre. The War of the Worlds (1898), describing an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry, is a seminal depiction of an alien

invasion of Earth. The Time Machine is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposefully and selectively. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now universally used to refer to such a vehicle. [edit] Serial novel Many novels of the Victorian period were published in serial form; that is, individual chapters or sections appearing in subsequent journal issues. As such, demand was high for each new appearance of the novel to introduce some new element, whether it be a plot twist or a new character, so as to maintain the reader's interest. Authors publishing serially were often paid by the installment, which helps account for the popularity of the three-volume novel during this period. In part for these reasons, novels are made up of a variety of plots and a large number of characters, appearing and reappearing as events dictate. [edit] 20th century Important novelists of the early 20th century include D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, C. S. Forester and P. G. Wodehouse D. H. Lawrence wrote with understanding about the social life of the lower and middle classes, and the personal lives of those who could not adapt to the social norms of his time. Sons and Lovers (1913), is widely regarded as his earliest masterpiece. There followed The Rainbow (1915), and its sequel Women in Love (1920). Lawrence attempted to explore human emotions more deeply than his contemporaries and challenged the boundaries of the acceptable treatment of sexual issues, most notably in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). Virginia Woolf was an influential feminist, and a major stylistic innovator associated with the stream-of-consciousness technique. Her novels include Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931). She is also known for the famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction", from her 1929 essay, A Room of One's Own.[3] E. M. Forster's A Passage to India (1924), reflected challenges to imperialism, while his earlier works such as A Room with a View and

Howards End examined Edwardian society in England. Robert Graves is best known for his 1934 novel I Claudius. The popularity of novelists who wrote in a more traditional style, such as Nobel Prize laureate John Galsworthy, whose novels include The Forsyte Saga, and Arnold Bennett, author of The Old Wives' Tale, continued in the interwar period. Aldous Huxley's futuristic novel Brave New World (1932) envisions developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. Daphne Du Maurier wrote Rebecca, a mystery novel, in 1938. W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage, is a strongly autobiographical novel that is generally agreed to be his masterpiece. Evelyn Waugh satirised the "bright young things" of the 1920s and 1930s, notably in A Handful of Dust, while his magnum opus Brideshead Revisited (1945), deals with theology. Agatha Christie was a crime writer of novels, short stories and plays, best remembered for her 80 detective novels and her successful West End theatre plays. Christie's works, particularly those featuring the detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, have given her the title the "Queen of Crime" and made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the development of the genre. Christie's novels include Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Death on the Nile (1937), and And Then There Were None (1939). Another popular writer during the Golden Age of detective fiction was Dorothy L. Sayers. The novelist Georgette Heyer created the historical romance genre. Graham Greene's works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world. His works, notable for achieving both serious literary acclaim and broad popularity, include four Catholic novels, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair. Nobel Prize laureate William Golding's allegorical novel, Lord of the Flies (1954), posits that culture created by man fails, and uses as an example a group of British schoolboys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, with disastrous results.

Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange (1962) displays government's control of an individual's free will through the use of a classical conditioning technique. Burgess creates a new speech in his novel (Nadsat) that is the teenage slang of the not-too-distant future. Buildungsroman

An Introduction Buildungsroman in E. B. Browning, C. Dickens, and G. Swift

Children's Literature

An Historical Introduction

The Condition-of-England Novel

Introduction Thomas Carlyle and the Origin of the Condition of England Question Benjamin Disraeli and the Two Nation Divide Shirley As a Condition-of-England Novel

The Detective Novel

Detective Novels: Whodunits and Thrillers Materials on Sherlock Holmes

The Epistolary Novel

Trollope's use of letters Subjective response to letters in nineteenth-century fictions Letters and dialogue in drama Epistolary novels and psychological action Epistolary fiction a bibliographical note

The Fantasy Novel and Short Story

Lewis Carroll Lord Dunsany William Hope Hodgson Charles Kingsley

George MacDonald George Meredith William Morris John Ruskin Bram Stoker The Invented World in the Works of William Morris Realism in High Fantasy The Novel, Fantastic Fiction, and the Inner World

Gothic Fiction

Women Fiction Writers and the Victorian Gothic: A Selective Bibliography

The Political Novel

The Genre of the Political Novel Didacticism and the Political Novel Morris Edmund Speare on Inclusiveness in the Political Novel American vs. British Political Novels The Victorian Novel of Inter-class Romance The Victorian Social Novel as Genre Structure and Technique in the Victorian Political Novel

The Sensation Novel

Introduction Hardy and the Sensation Novel The Victorian Custody Novel Selected Bibliography

Science Fiction

Richard Jefferies and Victorian Science Fiction

The Silver Fork School

Introduction Bibliography

The Slum Novel

Introduction Bibliography of primary sources Bibliography of criticism an scholarship

The Utopian Novel

Homesick in Utopia: State Capitalism and Pathology in Novels of the 1880s and 1890s Science and Technology in Victorian Utopias

The Victorian Governess Novel

Introduction Characteristics of the Genre The Victorian Governess: A Bibliography Punch and Bront on Training the Ideal Governess

The New Woman Novel

Introduction Primary Sources Secondary Sources

Realism, Local Color, and Naturalism Major 19th Century American Novelists Keep in mind that eras in literary history are not fixed and that novelists writing in one era may have more in common with the novelists of another era. Also note that my emphasis here is on the novel in English. The Romantic Novel Romanticism is a movement in art and literature that began in Europe in the late 18th century and was most influential in the first half of the 19th century.

Romanticism fosters a return to nature and also values the imagination over reason and emotion over intellect. One strain of the Romantic is the Gothic with its emphasis on tales of horror and the supernatural. Major Romantic Novelists CHARLOTTE BRONTE (1816-55) Bronte's major novel Jane Eyre (1847) is the model for countless novels featuring governesses and mysterious strangers. EMILY BRONTE (1818-48) Bronte's major work Wuthering Heights (1847) is full of Gothic elements. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851) Cooper's most popular novels of the frontier feature Natty Bumpo, a man at one with nature. Major Works:

The Last of the Mohicans (1826) The Deerslayer (1841)

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-64)

Hawthorne's novels are marked by his obsession with his Puritan ancestors and with the issue of guilt. His most famous novels feature elements of the Romantic and the Gothic. Major Works:

The Scarlet Letter (1850) The House of the Seven Gables (1851)

HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-91) Melville's novels are about the sea and seamen. His masterwork Moby Dick (1851) is a study in obsession and its consequences as well as an exploration of the nature of evil. The Victorian Novel The Victorian Age is marked roughly by the reign of Queen Victoria of England from 1837-1901. The Victorian reading public firmly established the novel as the dominant literary form of the era. The novel is the most distinctive and lasting literary achievement of Victorian literature. Earlier in the century Sir Walter Scott had created a large novel-reading public and had made the novel respectable. He had also strengthened the tradition of the 3-volume novel. The publication of novels in monthly installments enabled even the poor to purchase them The novelists of the Victorian era:

accepted middle class values treated the problem of the individual's adjustment to his society emphasized well-rounded middle-class characters portrayed the hero as a rational man of virtue believed that human nature is fundamentally good and lapses are errors of judgment corrected by maturation

The Victorian novel appealed to readers because of its:

realism impulse to describe the everyday world the reader could recognize introduction of characters who were blends of virtue and vice attempts to display the natural growth of personality expressions of emotion: love, humor, suspense, melodrama, pathos (deathbed scenes) moral earnestness and wholesomeness, including crusades against social evils and self-censorship to acknowledge the standard morality of the times.

The Victorian novel featured several developments in narrative technique:

full description and exposition authorial essays multiplotting featuring several central characters

Furthermore, the practice of issuing novels in serial installments led novelists to become adept at subclimaxes. Major Victorian Novelists CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870) Dickens was the most successful of the English Victorian novelists, a master of sentiment and a militant reformer. We admire Dickens for his:

fertility of character creation depiction of childhood and youth comic creations

Major Works:

A Christmas Carol (1843), most popular Christmas story in the English speaking world David Copperfield (1849-50), essentially autobiographical and Dickens' own favorite novel

Bleak House (1852-3), the first Dickens novel with a carefully-knit plot

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-63) Thackeray's chief subject is the contrast between human pretensions and human weakness. He excelled at portraying his own upper middle class social stratum. His major work is Vanity Fair (1847). GEORGE ELIOT (MARY ANN EVANS) (1819-88) Eliot is considered to be the first modern novelist, a creator of psychological fiction. She is known for her penetrating character analyses and convincingly realistic scenes. In Eliot's novels plot did not need to depend upon external complications; it could rise from a character's internal groping toward knowledge and choice. Major Works:

Adam Bede (1859), a love triangle set in pre-industrial agricultural England Silas Marner (1861), the nearest thing to a perfect George Eliot novel with a plot about a miser who adopts a foundling and the theme of the regenerative power of humanity and love Middlemarch (1871-72), the first English novel concerned with the intellectual life, the story of a city during the agitated era of 1832 reforms, the Industrial Revolution, the Evangelical movement, and the new scientific outlook

THOMAS HARDY (1840-1920) The characteristic Victorian novelist such as Dickens or Thackeray was concerned with the behavior and problems of people in a given social milieu which he described in detail.

Thomas Hardy preferred to go directly for the elemental in human behavior with a minimum of contemporary social detail. He felt that man was an alien in an impersonal universe and at the mercy of sheer chance. Though readers assume he is a pessimist he called himself a meliorist, yearning hopefully for a better world. Major Works:

Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) Jude the Obscure (1895)

The revolt in Jude the Obscure against indissoluble Victorian marriage (of Jude to Arabella and Sue Bridehead to Phillotson) aroused such a storm of protest over its religious pessimism and sex themes that Hardy turned thereafter exclusively to poetry. Other Victorian Novelists of Note WILKIE COLLINS(1824-89) Collins is considered the father of the modern detective novel. Major Works:

The Woman in White (1860) The Moonstone (1868), the novel which G.K Chesterton termed "probably the best detective story in the world"

LEWIS CARROLL (CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON) (1832-98) A mathematician, Carroll sublimated his anti-Victorianism in his writing. Major Works:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), which remains one of the best-loved children's books in the English speaking world Through the Looking-Glass (1871)

Realism, Local Color, and Naturalism

In the United States the latter half of the 19th century was marked by recovery from the Civil War, the movement from rural areas to the cities, and the rise of industrialism and business. Protest movements--led by unions or blacks or feminists--challenged the status quo. As the major Romantic writers such as Hawthorne and Melville died or stopped writing for publication, a new breed of novelists, trained initially as journalists, rejected romanticism and insisted that the ordinary and the local were suitable subjects for artistic portrayal. Realists had what Henry James called "a powerful impulse to mirror the unmitigated realities of life." As the realists rejected romantic idealism and dependence on established moral truths they began to present subtleties of human personality and characters who were neither wholly good nor wholly bad. This philosophical realism gradually became increasingly pessimistic and deterministic as seen by the later works of Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Theodore Dreiser One group of writers championed local color writing, an amalgam of romanticism and realism with romantic plots coupled with a realistic portrayal of the dialects, custom, and sights of regional America. The local color movement was a bridge between romanticism and realism and can be viewed as a subdivision of realism. It resulted from the desire both to preserve distinctive ways of life before industrialization dispersed or homogenized them and to come to terms with the harsh realities that seemed to replace these early times. Naturalism, which gained popularity near the end of the 19th century, is generally described as a new and harsher realism. In an attempt to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, naturalistic novelists portrayed characters of low social and economic class shaped by environment and heredity and moved by animal passions. In the view of the naturalists, environmental forces, whether of nature or the city, outweigh or overwhelm human agency; the individual can exert little or no control over events.

Major 19th Century American Novelists HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811-96), whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) was one of the many influences on the start of the American Civil War HENRY JAMES (1843-1916) James was not only a novelist but an influential critic of the novel whose prefaces to his own work were later collected in The Art of the Novel (1934). His exploration of point of view and his development of stream of consciousness technique have greatly influenced subsequent writers of fiction. Major Works:

The Portrait of a Lady (1881) The Wings of the Dove (1902) The Ambassadors (1903) The Golden Bowl (1904)

MARK TWAIN (SAMUEL LANGHORE CLEMENS) (1835-1910)

Twain's best work breaks out of the local color genre. Major Works:

Tom Sawyer (1876)

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), generally considered to be the Great American Novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)

KATE CHOPIN (1851-1904) was a local color writer whose works are set in the Creole society of Louisiana. The Awakening (1899) is an early feminist novel about a woman unhappy in her marriage. JACK LONDON (1876-1916) London's adventures in the Pacific Northwest and during the Alaska gold rush were the basis of his very popular short stories and novels such as The Call of the Wild (1903) and The Sea Wolf (1904). EDITH WHARTON Major Works:

Ethan Frome (1911) The Age of Innocence (1920)

STEPHEN CRANE (1871-1900) The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Crane's novel of the Civil War, is generally considered one of the greatest war novels of all time. Crane had never seen combat when he wrote this novel. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) Major Works:

Sister Carrie (1900) An American Tragedy (1925)

What is a Novel? E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel cites the definition of a Frenchman named Abel Chevalley: "a fiction in prose of a certain extent" and adds that he defines "extent" as over 50,000 words.

There are three possible points of emphasis in prose fiction. Each point can be emphasized in either a long or a short narrative. Point of Emphasis abstract theme plot character Short Form fable anecdote short story Long Form allegory romance novel

As you can see from the above table, the novel is one form of an extended fictional prose narrative. It differs from allegory (which functions to teach some sort of moral lesson) and romance (with its emphasis on spectacular and exciting events designed to entertain) in its emphasis on character development. The novel, however, arises from the desire to depict and interpret human character. The reader of a novel is both entertained and aided in a deeper perception of life's problems. The roots of the novel come from a number of sources:

Elizabethan prose fiction French heroic romance--vast baroque narratives about thinly disguised contemporaries (mid-17th century) who always acted nobly and spoke high-flown sentiment Spanish picaresque tales--strings of episodic adventures held together by the personality of the central figure; Don Quixote is the best known of these tales.

The word "novel" (which wasn't even used until the end of the 18th century) is an English transliteration of the Italian word "novella"--used to describe a short, compact, broadly realistic tale popular during the medieval period (e.g. The Decameron). The novel deals with a human character in a social situation, man as a social being.

The novel places more emphasis on character, especially one well-rounded character, than on plot. Another initial major characteristic of the novel is realism--a full and authentic report of human life. The traditional novel has:

a unified and plausible plot structure sharply individualized and believable characters a pervasive illusion of reality

A novel is an extended fictional narrative, usually written in prose. Fiction, regardless of its attempt at verisimilitude, is a created world apart, a world of the possible or probable or even the fantastic rather than the actual. Fiction is governed by its own rules and internal completeness. The only obligation of the writer is to make the story interesting. The measure of success of a work of fiction is how well or poorly the author has unified the story and controlled its impact. In The Art of Fiction John Gardner says: A novel is like a symphony in that its closing movement echoes and resounds with all that has gone before. . . . Toward the close of a novel. . . . unexpected connections begin to surface; hidden causes become plain; life becomes, however briefly and unstably, organized; the universe reveals itself, if only for the moment, as inexorably moral; the outcome of the various characters' actions is at last manifest; and we see the responsibility of free will. (184) A novel aims for a comprehensive unified effect in which all of the elements of fiction intertwine to make a comment on the human condition. The elements of fiction are :

Plot: what happens in the story Character: who is involved in what happens in the story Point of View: how the story is told

Setting: where and when the story takes place Theme: what the point of the story is

An ability to identify these elements in a novel and then understand how all of these elements work together to provide the effect of the novel on the reading leads to a critical understanding of a novel.